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That Which Befits Us, Embosomed In Beauty And Wonder As We Are, Is Cheerfulness, And Courage, And The Endeavor To Realize Our Aspirations. Shall Not The Heart Which Has Received So Much, Trust The Power By Which It Lives? May It Not Quit Other Leadings, And Listen To The Soul That Has Guided It So Gently, And Taught It So Much, Secure That The Future Will Be Worthy Of The Past?

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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That Which Befits Us,

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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That Which Befits Us, Embosomed In Beauty And Wonder As We Are, Is Cheerfulness, And Courage, And The Endeavor To Realize Our Aspirations. Shall Not The Heart Which Has Received So Much, Trust The Power By Which It Lives? May It Not Quit Other Leadings, And Listen To The Soul That Has Guided It So Gently, And Taught It So Much, Secure That The Future Will Be Worthy Of The Past?

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A Scholar Does Not Wish To Be Always Pumping His Brains; He Wants Gossips.

The Law Of Nature Is Alternation For Evermore. Each Electrical State Superinduces The Opposite. The Soul Environs Itself With Friends, That It May Enter Into A Grander Self-acquaintance Or Solitude; And It Goes Alone For A Season, That It May Exalt Its Conversation Or Society.

There Are Days When The Great Are Near Us, When There Is No Frown On Their Brow, No Condescension Even; When They Take Us By The Hand, And We Share Their Thought.

A Man's Wife Has More Power Over Him Than The State Has.

I Unsettle All Things.

Human Society Is Made Up Of Partialities. Each Citizen Has An Interest And A View Of His Own, Which, If Followed Out To The Extreme, Would Leave No Room For Any Other Citizen.

All Promise Outruns Performance.

The Primary Wisdom Is Intuition. In That Deep Force, The Last Fact Behind Which Analysis Cannot Go, All Things Find Their Origin.

All Loss, All Pain, Is Particular; The Universe Remains To The Heart Unhurt.

Yet America Is A Poem In Our Eyes; Its Ample Geography Dazzles The Imagination, And It Will Not Wait Long For Metres.

The Energetic Action Of The Times Develops Individualism, And The Religious Appear Isolated. I Esteem This A Step In The Right Direction. Heaven Deals With Us On No Representative System. Souls Are Not Saved In Bundles.

Each Mind Has Its Own Method. A True Man Never Acquires After College Rules.

A Woman's Strength Is The Unresistible Might Of Weakness.

It Is Easy To Live For Others, Everybody Does. I Call On You To Live For Yourself.

No Reason Can Be Asked Or Given Why The Soul Seeks Beauty. Beauty, In Its Largest And Profoundest Sense, Is One Expression For The Universe. God Is The All-fair. Truth, And Goodness, And Beauty, Are But Different Faces Of The Same All.

Different Faces

My Life Should Be Unique; It Should Be An Alms, A Battle, A Conquest, A Medicine.

Self Reliance, The Height And Perfection Of Man, Is Reliance On God.

Let Not A Man Guard His Dignity, But Let His Dignity Guard Him.

My Joy In Friends, Those Sacred People, Is My Consolation.

The Superstition Respecting Power And Office Is Going To The Ground. The Stream Of Human Affairs Flows Its Own Way, And Is Very Little Affected By The Activity Of Legislators. What Great Masses Of Men Wish Done, Will Be Done; And They Do Not Wish It For A Freak, But Because It Is Their State And Natural End.

Intellectual Tasting Of Life Will Not Supersede Muscular Activity. If A Man Should Consider The Nicety Of The Passage Of A Piece Of Bread Down His Throat, He Would Starve.

The Persons Who Constitute The Natural Aristocracy, Are Not Found In The Actual Aristocracy, Or, Only On Its Edge; As The Chemicalenergy Of The Spectrum Is Found To Be Greatest Just Outside Of The Spectrum.

Whatever It Is, It's Better In The Wind.

Nature Does Not Cocker Us: We Are Children, Not Pets: She Is Not Fond: Everything Is Dealt To Us Without Fear Or Favor, After Severe Universal Laws.

Get Health. No Labor, Effort Nor Exercise That Can Gain It Must Be Grudged.

Politics Is A Deleterious Profession, Like Some Poisonous Handicrafts.

When The Eyes Say One Thing, And The Tongue Another, A Practiced Man Relies On The Language Of The First.

The Genius Of The Platonists, Is Intoxicating To The Student, Yet How Few Particulars Of It Can I Detach From All Their Books.

Men Should Take Their Knowledge From The Sun, The Moon And The Stars.

Slavery Is No Scholar, No Improver; It Does Not Love The Whistle Of The Railroad; It Does Not Love The Newspaper, The Mailbag, A College, A Book Or A Preacher Who Has The Absurd Whim Of Saying What He Thinks; It Does Not Increase The White Population; It Does Not Improve The Soil; Everything Goes To Decay.

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things; Each Once A Stroke Of Genius Or Of Love, Now Repeated And Hardened Into Usage.

Every Calamity Is A Spur And A Valuable Hint.

The World Is Always Childish, And With Each New Gewgaw Of A Revolution Or New Constitution That It Finds, Thinks It Shall Never Cry Any More.

The Religions Of The World Are The Ejaculations Of A Few Imaginative Men.

Never Lose An Opportunity Of Seeing Anything Beautiful, For Beauty Is God's Handwriting.

Love Is The Bright Foreigner, The Foreign Self.

Intellectual Tasting Of Life Will Not Supersede Muscular Activity.

If, At Any Time, It Comes Into My Head, That A Present Is Due From Me To Somebody, I Am Puzzled What To Give, Until The Opportunity Is Gone.

In The Sublimest Flights Of The Soul, Rectitude Is Never Surmounted, Love Is Never Outgrown.

We Fancy Men Are Individuals; So Are Pumpkins; But Every Pumpkin In The Field Goes Through Every Point Of Pumpkin History.

All Necessary Truth Is Its Own Evidence.

The Truth, The Hope Of Any Time, Must Always Be Sought In Minorities.

We Live In A New And Exceptional Age. America Is Another Word For Opportunity. Our Whole History Appears Like A Last Effort Of The Divine Providence In Behalf Of The Human Race; And A Literal, Slavish Following Of Precedents, As By A Justice Of The Peace, Is Not For Those Who At This Hour Lead The American Civilization.

A Friend Is A Person With Whom I May Be Sincere. Before Him I May Think Aloud.

Thought Is The Property Of Him Who Can Entertain It, And Of Him Who Can Adequately Place It.

He Presents Me With What Is Always An Acceptable Gift Who Brings Me News Of A Great Thought Before Unknown. He Enriches Me Without Impoverishing Himself.

It Is A Luxury To Be Understood.

Nature Is Not Always Tricked In Holiday Attire, But The Same Scene Which Yesterday Breathed Perfume And Glittered As For The Frolic Of The Nymphs, Is Overspread With Melancholy Today. Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit.

The Craft Of The Merchant Is This Bringing A Thing Where It Abounds To Where It Is Costly.

Have Mountains, And Waves, And Skies, No Significance But What We Consciously Give Them, When We Employ Them As Emblems Of Our Thoughts?

The Religion Of England Is Part Of Good-breeding. When You See On The Continent The Well-dressed Englishman Come Into His Ambassador's Chapel And Put His Face For Silent Prayer Into His Smooth-brushed Hat, You Cannot Help Feeling How Much National Pride Prays With Him, And The Religion Of A Gentleman.

But Whoso Is Heroic Must Find Crises To Try His Edge. Human Virtue Demands Her Champions And Martyrs, And The Trial Of Persecution Always Proceeds.

The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively.

What Is It Men Love In Genius, But Its Infinite Hope, Which Degrades All It Has Done? Genius Counts All Its Miracles Poor And Short. Its Own Idea It Never Executed.

Everything In Creation Has Its Appointed Painter Or Poet And Remains In Bondage Like The Princess In The Fairy Tale 'til Its Appropriate Liberator Comes To Set It Free.

I Find Nothing In Fables More Astonishing Than My Experience In Every Hour. One Moment Of A Man's Life Is A Fact So Stupendous As To Take The Luster Out Of Fiction.

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No One Has A Prosperity So High And Firm That Two Or Three Words Can't Dishearten It.

Always Maintain Your Common Sense And Artful Skills, And Funnel It All Into Plain Enough Dealings.

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He Who Has Acquired The Ability, May Wait Securely The Occasion Of Making It Felt And Appreciated, And Know That It Will Not Loiter.

A Cheerful, Intelligent Face Is The End Of Culture.

A System-grinder Hates The Truth.

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For The Most Part, Only The Light Characters Travel. Who Are You That Have No Task To Keep You At Home?

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The Modernness Of All Good Books Seems To Give Men An Existence As Wide As Man.

The Test Of Civilization Is The Power Of Drawing The Most Benefit Out Of Cities.

Every Particular In Nature, A Leaf, A Drop, A Crystal, A Moment Of Time Is Related To The Whole, And Partakes Of The Perfection Of The Whole.

There Is A Good Ear, In Some Men, That Draws Supplies To Virtue Out Of Very Indifferent Nutriment.

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken. The Whole Human Family Is Bathed With An Element Of Love Like A Fine Ether. How Many Persons We Meet In Houses, Whom We Scarcely Speak To, Whom Yet We Honor And Who Honor Us! How Many We See In The Street, Or Sit With In Church, Whom Though Silently, We Warmly Rejoice To Be With! Read The Language Of These Wandering Eye-beams. The Heart Knoweth.

But, If We Explore The Literature Of Heroism, We Shall Quickly Come To Plutarch, Who Is Its Doctor And Historian. To Him We Owe The Brasidas, The Dion, The Epaminodas, The Scipio Of Old, And I Must Think We Are More Deeply Indebted To Him Than To All The Ancient Writers. Each Of His "lives" Is A Refutation To The Despondency And Cowardice Of Our Religious And Political Theorists. A Wild Courage, A Stoicism Not Of The Schools, But Of The Blood, Shines In Every Anecdote, And Had Given That Book Immense Fame.

He Walks Abreast With His Days And Feels No Shame In Not 'studying A Profession', For He Does Not Postpone His Life, But Lives Already. He Has Not One Chance, But A Hundred Chances.

Our Desires Presage The Capacities Within Us; They Are Harbingers Of What We Shall Be Able To Accomplish. What We Can Do And Want To Do Is Projected In Our Imagination, Quite Outside Ourselves, And Into The Future. We Are Attracted To What Is Already Ours In Secret. Thus Passionate Anticipation Transforms What Is Indeed Possible Into Dreamt-for Reality.

Money Is Of No Value; It Cannot Spend Itself. All Depends On The Skill Of The Spender.

Not Always Can Flowers, Pearls, Poetry, Protestations, Nor Even Home In Another Heart, Content The Awful Soul That Dwells In Clay.

[w]e Pity Our Fathers For Dying Before Steam And Galvanism, Sulphuric Ether And Ocean Telegraphs, Photograph And Spectrograph Arrived, As Cheated Out Of Their Human Estate.

If You Maintain A Dead Church, Contribute To A Dead Bible-society, Vote With A Great Party Either For The Government Or Against It, Spread Your Table Like Base Housekeepers, - Under All These Screens I Have Diffuculty To Detect The Precise Man You Are: And Of Course So Much Force Is Withdrawn From Your Proper Life. But Do Your Work And I Shall Know You. Do Your Work, And You Shall Reinforce Yourself. A Man Must Consider What A Blind-man's Bluff Is This Game Of Conformity. If I Know Your Sect I Anticipate Your Argument.

I Do Not Know What Arguments Mean In Reference To Any Expression Of A Thought. I Delight In Telling What I Think; But If You Ask Me How I Dare Say So, Or Why It Is So, I Am The Most Helpless Of Men.

We Are Immersed In Beauty, But Our Eyes Have No Clear Vision.

The Eye Is Easily Frightened.

Begin And Proceed On A Settled Conviction That But Little Is Permitted To Any Man To Do Or To Know, And If He Complies With The First Grand Laws, He Shall Do Well.

There Are Other Measures Of Self-respect For A Man, Than The Number Of Clean Shirts He Puts On Every Day.

Mankind Have Such A Deep Stake In Inward Illumination, That There Is Much To Be Said By The Hermit Or Monk In Defence Of His Life Of Thought And Prayer.

The True Thrift Is Always To Spend On The Higher Plane; To Invest And Invest, With Keener Avarice, That He May Spend In Spiritualcreation, And Not In Augmenting Animal Existence. Nor Is The Man Enriched, In Repeating The Old Experiments Of Animal Sensation; Nor Unless Through New Powers And Ascending Pleasures He Knows Himself By The Actual Experience Of Higher Good To Be Already On The Way To The Highest.

Columbus Discovered No Isle Or Key So Lonely As Himself.

It All Begins When The Soul Would Have Its Way With You.

There Is The Illusion Of Time, Which Is Very Deep; Who Has Disposed Of It? Mor Come To The Conviction That What Seems The Succession Of Thought Is Only The Distribution Of Wholes Into Causal Series.

The Unstable Estimates Of Men Crowd To Him Whose Mind Is Filled With A Truth, As The Heaped Waves Of The Atlantic Follow The Moon.

The Manly Part Is To Do With Might And Main What You Can Do.

Finish Each Day And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could. Some Blunders And Absurdities No Doubt Crept In; Forget Them As Soon As You Can. Tomorrow Is A New Day; Begin It Well And Serenely And With Too High A Spirit To Be Encumbered With Your Old Nonsense.

A Divine Person Is The Prophecy Of The Mind; A Friend Is The Hope Of The Heart.

Conservatism, Ever More Timorous And Narrow, Disgusts The Children, And Drives Them For A Mouthful Of Fresh Air Into Radicalism.

It Is The Delight Of Vulgar Talent To Dazzle And To Bind The Beholder. But True Genius Seeks To Defend Us From Itself. True Geniuswill Not Impoverish, But Will Liberate, And Add New Sense. If A Wise Man Should Appear In Our Village, He Would Create, In Those Who Conversed With Him, A New Consciousness Of Wealth, By Opening Their Eyes To Unobserved Advantages; He Would Establish A Sense Of Immovable Equality, Calm Us With Assurances That We Could Not Be Cheated; As Every One Would Discern The Checks And Guarantees Of Condition.

The Ancestor Of Every Action Is Thought; When We Understand That We Begin To Comprehend That Our World Is Governed By Thought And That Everything Without Had Its Counterpart Originally Within The Mind.

The Horseman Serves The Horse, The Neat-herd Serves The Neat, The Merchant Serves The Purse, The Eater Serves His Meat; 'tis The Day Of The Chattel, Web To Weave, And Corn To Grind, Things Are In The Saddle, And Ride Mankind.

The Boxer's Ring Is The Enjoyment Of The Part Of Society Whose Animal Nature Alone Has Been Developed.

Away With This Hurrah Of Masses, And Let Us Have The Considerate Vote Of Single Men.

If You Will Not Lend Me The Money, How Can I Pay You?

My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life.

The Hearing Ear Is Always Found Close To The Speaking Tongue.

At The Gates Of The Forest, The Surprised Man Of The World Is Forced To Leave His City Estimates Of Great And Small, Wise And Foolish.

The Goof Man, In Dealing With His People, Taxes Them With Luxury.

I Wish To Write Such Rhymes As Shall Not Suggest A Restraint, But Contrariwise The Wildest Freedom.

We Aim Above The Mark, To Hit The Mark. Every Act Hath Some Falsehood Of Exaggeration In It.

The World Is All Outside, It Has No Inside.

To The Men Of This World, To The Animal Strength And Spirits, To The Men Of Practical Power, Whilst Immersed In It, The Man Of Ideas Appears Out Of His Reason. They Alone Gave Reason.

Science, Nature,-o, I've Yearned To Open Some Page.

When God Lets Loose A Great Thinker On This Planet, Then All Things Are At Risk. There Is Not A Piece Of Science But Its Flank May Be Turned To-morrow; Nor Any Literary Reputation Or The So-called Eternal Names Of Fame That Many Not Be Refused And Condemned.

Jesus And Shakespeare Are Fragments Of The Soul, And By Love I Conquer And Incorporate Them In My Own Conscious Domain. His Virtue,--is Not That Mine? His Wit,--if It Cannot Be Made Mine, It Is Not Wit.

The Force Of Character Is Cumulative.

We Ask For Long Life, But 'tis Deep Life, Or Noble Moments That Signify. Let The Measure Of Time Be Spiritual, Not Mechanical.

Pride Ruined The Angels.

We Acquire The Strength We Have Overcome.

Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today. Let Us Treat Men And Women Well; Treat Them As If They Were Real; Perhaps They Are.

Many Photographers Think They Are Photographing Nature When They Are Only Caricaturing Her.

Society Never Advances. It Recedes As Fast On One Side As It Gains On The Other. It Undergoes Continual Changes: It Is Barbarous, It Is Civilized, It Is Rich, It Is Scientific; But This Change Is Not Amelioration. For Every Thing That Is Given, Something Else Is Taken. Society Acquires New Arts And Loses Old Instincts.

Passion Rebuilds The World For The Youth. It Makes All Things Alive And Significant.

Be A Football To Time And Chance, The More Kicks, The Better, So That You Inspect The Whole Game And Know Its Utmost Law.

The Intelligent Have A Right Over The Ignorant; Namely, The Right Of Instructing Them.

A Man Must Ride Alternately On The Horses Of His Private And His Public Nature.

Conversation Is A Game Of Circles.

Every Time You Wink The Stars Move.

Most Of The Classical Citations You Shall Hear Or Read In The Current Journals Or Speeches Were Not Drawn From The Originals, But From Previous Quotations In English Books.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Practical Poet, Taming Her Savage Mate, Planting Tenderness, Hope And Eloquence In All Whom She Approaches.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose. Foolish People Ask You, When You Have Spoken What They Do Not Wish To Hear, 'how Do You Know It Is Truth, And Not An Error Of Your Own?' We Know Truth When We See It, From Opinion, As We Know When We Are Awake That We Are Awake.

The Delicious Faces Of Children, The Beauty Of School-girls, "the Sweet Seriousness Of Sixteen," The Lofty Air Of Well-born, Well-bred Boys, The Passionate Histories In The Looks And Manners Of Youth And Early Manhood, And The Varied Power In All That Well-known Company That Escort Us Through Life,--we Know How These Forms Thrill, Paralyze, Provoke, Inspire, And Enlarge Us.

The Goitre Of Egotism Is So Frequent Among Notable Persons, That We Must Infer Some Strong Necessity In Nature Which It Subserves;such As We See In The Sexual Attraction.

Self-love Is, In Almost All Men, Such An Over-weight That They Are Incredulous Of A Man's Habitual Preference Of The General Good To His Own; But When They See It Proved By Sacrifices Of Ease, Wealth, Rank, And Of Life Itself, There Is No Limit To Their Admiration.

The Civility Of The World Has Reached That Pitch That Their More Moral Genius Is Becoming Indispensable, And The Quality Of This Race Is To Be Honored For Itself.

Eloquence Is The Power To Translate A Truth Into Language Perfectly Intelligible To The Person To Whom You Speak.

Freedom Has Nothing To Do With Having The Right To Vote For Your Oppressor; Freedom Is Not Having Any Form Of Oppression.

Of The Shaker Society, It Was Formerly A Sort Of Proverb In The Country, That They Always Sent The Devil To Market.

Successful Is The Person Who Has Lived Well, Laughed Often And Loved Much, Who Has Gained The Respect Of Children, Who Leaves The World Better Than They Found It, Who Has Never Lacked Appreciation For The Earth's Beauty, Who Never Fails To Look For The Best In Others Or Give The Best Of Themselves.

Manners Aim To Facilitate Life, To Get Rid Of Impediments, And Bring The Man Pure To Energize. They Aid Our Dealing And Conversation, As A Railway Aids Travelling, By Getting Rid Of All Avoidable Obstructions Of The Road, And Leaving Nothing To Be Conquered But Pure Space.

You Must Treat The Days Respectfully, You Must Be A Day Yourself, And Not Interrogate It Like A College Professor.

In Skating Over Thin Ice Our Safety Is In Our Speed.

Illusion, Temperament, Succession, Surface, Surprise, Reality, Subjectiveness,--these Are The Threads On The Loom Of Time, These Are The Lords Of Life.

The Chief Mourner Does Not Always Attend The Funeral.

I Do Not Wonder At A Snowflake, A Shell, A Summer Landscape, Or The Glory Of The Stars; But At The Necessity Of Beauty Under Which The Universe Lies.

Every Wall Is A Door.

The Ornaments Of Our Homes Are The Friends That Visit It

Our Prejudices Are Our Robbers, They Rob Us Valuable Things In Life. People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

Outside Among Your Fellows, Among Strangers, You Must Preserve Appearances, A Hundred Things You Cannot Do; But Inside, The Terrible Freedom.

Natural Religion Supplies Still All The Facts Which Are Disguised Under The Dogma Of Popular Creeds. The Progress Of Religion Is Steadily To Its Identity With Morals.

We Put Our Love Where We Have Put Our Labor.

The Poet, The Painter, The Sculptor, The Musican, The Architect, Seek Each To Concentrate This Radiance Of The World On One Point, And Each In His Several Work To Satisfy The Love Of Beauty Which Stimulates Him To Produce.

Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands.

Power Ceases In The Instant Of Repose; It Resides In The Moment Of Transition From A Past To A New State, In The Shooting Of The Gulf, In The Darting To An Aim.

A Fly Is As Untamable As A Hyena.

The Eye Of Prudence May Never Shut.

I Suffer Whenever I See That Common Sight Of A Parent Or Senior Imposing His Opinion And Way Of Thinking And Being On A Young Soul To Which They Are Totally Unfit. Cannot We Let People Be Themselves, And Enjoy Life In Their Own Way? You Are Trying To Make That Man Another You. One's Enough.

The Only Sin Is Limitation. As Soon As You Once Come Up With A Man's Limitations, It Is All Over With Him. Has He Talents? Has Heenterprise? Has He Knowledge? It Boots Not. Infinitely Alluring And Attractive Was He To You Yesterday, A Great Hope, A Sea To Swim In; Now, You Have Found His Shores, Found It A Pond, And You Care Not If You Never See It Again.

If I Have Lost Confidence In Myself, I Have The Universe Against Me.

Take The Place And Attitude To Which You See Your Unquestionable Right, And All Men Acquiesce.

It Is For Want Of Self-culture That The Superstition Of Travelling, Whose Idols Are Italy, England, Egypt, Retains Its Fascinationfor All Educated Americans.

Homeopathy Is Insignificant As An Act Of Healing, But Of Great Value As Criticism On The Hygeia Or Medical Practice Of The Time.

As Long As Our Civilization Is Essentially One Of Property, Of Fences, Of Exclusiveness, It Will Be Mocked By Delusions.

Our Moods Do Not Believe In Each Other. To-day I Am Full Of Thoughts, And Can Write What I Please. I See No Reason Why I Should Not Have The Same Thought, The Same Power Of Expression, To-morrow. What I Write, Whilst I Write It, Seems The Most Natural Thing In The World; But Yesterday I Saw A Dreary Vacuity In This Direction In Which Now I See So Much; And A Month Hence, I Doubt Not, I Shall Wonder Who He Was That Wrote So Many Continuous Pages. Alas For This Infirm Faith, This Will Not Strenuous, This Vast Ebb Of A Vast Flow! I Am God In Nature; I Am A Weed By The Wall.

Everything In Nature Goes By Law, And Not By Luck.

For Poetry Was All Written Before Time Was, And Whenever We Are So Finely Organized That We Can Penetrate Into That Region Where The Air Is Music, We Hear Those Primal Warblings, And Attempt To Write Them Down, But We Lose Ever And Anon A Word, A Verse, And Substitute Something Of Our Own, And Thus Miswrite The Poem.

The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficient Distance, And It Straightens Itself To The Average Tendency. Your Genuine Action Will Explain Itself, And Will Explain Your Other Genuine Actions. Your Conformity Explains Nothing. Act Singly, And What You Have Already Done Singly Will Justify You Now. Greatness Appeals To The Future.

Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit.

Let Us Learn To Live Coarsely, Dress Plainly, And Lie Hard. The Least Habit Of Dominion Over The Palate Has Certain Good Effects Not Easily Estimated.

Truth Has Already Ceased To Be Itself If Polemically Said.

Enlarge Not Thy Destiny, Said The Oracle: Endeavor Not To Do More Than Is Given Thee In Charge.

The House ...she Lays Her Beams In Music, In Music Everyone, To The Cadence Of The Whirling World Which Dances Around The Sun- That So They Shall Not Be Displaced By Lapses Or By Wars, But For The Love Of Happy Souls Outlive The Newest Stars.

Finish Each Day Before You Begin The Next, And Interpose A Solid Wall Of Sleep Between The Two. This You Cannot Do Without Temperance.

Who Leaves The Pine-tree, Leaves His Friend, Unnerves His Strength, Invites His End.

The Inmost In Due Time Becomes The Outmost.

Though Love Repine, And Reason Chafe, There Came A Voice Without Reply,- "'tis Man's Perdition To Be Safe, When For The Truth He Ought To Die."

That Which We Call Character Is A Reserved Force Which Acts Directly By Presence, And Without Means. It Is Conceived Of As A Certain Undemonstrable Force, A Familiar Or Genius, By Whose Impulses The Man Is Guided, But Whose Counsels He Cannot Impart.

Life Wastes Itself Whilst We Are Preparing To Live.

When It's Darkest, Men See The Stars.

The Man In The Street Does Not Know A Star In The Sky.

We May Climb Into The Thin And Cold Realm Of Pure Geometry And Lifeless Science, Or Sink Into That Of Sensation. Between These Extremes Is The Equator Of Life, Of Thought, Or Spirit, Or Poetry,--a Narrow Belt.

Whenever The Average Intellect Of The Clergy Declines In The Balance With The Average Intellect Of The People The Churches Will Be Shut Up And A New Order Of Things [will] Begin.

What A Searching Preacher Of Self-command Is The Varying Phenomenon Of Health.

The City Is Always Recruited From The Country. The Men In Cities Who Are The Centres Of Energy, The Driving-wheels Of Trade, Politics Or Practical Arts, And The Women Of Beauty And Genius, Are The Children Or Grandchildren Of Farmers, And Are Spending The Energies Which Their Fathers' Hardy, Silent Life Accumulated In Frosty Furrows In Poverty, Necessity And Darkness.

The Worst Feature Of This Double Consciousness Is, That The Two Lives, Of The Understanding And Of The Soul, Which We Lead, Reallyshow Very Little Relation To Each Other; Never Meet And Measure Each Other: One Prevails Now, All Buzz And Din; And The Other Prevails Then, All Infinitude And Paradise; And, With The Progress Of Life, The Two Discover No Greater Disposition To Reconcile Themselves.

As I Walked In The Woods I Felt What I Often Feel That Nothing Can Befall Me In Life, No Calamity, No Disgrace (leaving Me My Eyes) To Which Nature Will Not Offer A Sweet Consolation. Standing On The Bare Ground With My Head Bathed By The Blithe Air, & Uplifted Into The Infinite Space, I Become Happy In My Universal Relations. The Name Of The Nearest Friend Sounds Then Foreign & Accidental. I Am The Heir Of Uncontained Beauty And Power.

The Finest Poems Of The World Have Been Expedients To Get Bread.

To The Young Mind Every Thing Is Individual, Stands By Itself. By And By, It Finds How To Join Two Things And See In Them One Nature; Then Three, Then Three Thousand; And So, Tyrannized Over By Its Own Unifying Instinct, It Goes On Tying Things Together, Diminishing Anomalies, Discovering Roots Running Under Ground Whereby Contrary And Remote Things Cohere And Flower Out From One Stem.

All Nobility In Its Beginnings Was Somebody's Natural Superiority.

Great Men Are They Who See That Spiritual Is Stronger Than Any Material Force - That Thoughts Rule The World.

Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

A Right Rule For A Club Would Be,-admit No Man Whose Presence Excludes Any One Topic.

What King Has He Not Taught State, As Talma Taught Napoleon? What Maiden Has Not Found Him Finer Than Her Delicacy? What Lover Has He Not Outloved? What Sage Has He Not Outseen? What Gentleman Has He Not Instructed In The Rudeness Of His Behavior?

Fate Is Nothing But The Deeds Committed In A Prior State Of Existence.

What Care Though Rival Cities Soar Along The Stormy Coast, Penn's Town, New York, Baltimore, If Boston Knew The Most!

Perpetual Modernism Is The Measure Of Merit In Every Work Of Art.

I Fear The Popular Notion Of Success Stands In Direct Opposition In All Points To The Real And Wholesome Success. One Adores Public Opinion, The Other, Private Opinion; One, Fame, The Other, Desert; One, Feats, The Other, Humility; One, Lucre, The Other, Love; One, Monopoly, And The Other, Hospitality Of Mind.

We Prize Books, And They Prize Them Most Who Are Themselves Wise.

Announced By All The Trumpets Of The Sky, Arrives The Snow, And, Driving O'er The Fields, Seems Nowhere To Alight: The Whited Air Hides Hills And Woods, The River, And The Heaven, And Veils The Farmhouse At The Garden's End. The Sled And Traveller Stopped, The Courier's Feet Delayed, All Friends Shut Out, The Housemates Sit Around The Radiant Fireplace, Enclosed In A Tumultuous Privacy Of Storm.

True Wit Never Made Us Laugh.

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