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The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance. Necessity Is The Law Of All Who Are Not Self-possessed.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Basis Of Good

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance. Necessity Is The Law Of All Who Are Not Self-possessed.

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The Soul Raised Over Passion Beholds Identity And Eternal Causation, Perceives The Self-existance Of Truth And Right, And Calms Itself With Knowing That All Things Go Well.

The Rhyme Of The Poet Modulates The King's Affairs.

Sleep Lingers All Our Lifetime About Our Eyes, As Night Hovers All Day In The Boughs Of The Fir-tree.

We Believe That The Defects Of So Many Perverse And So Many Frivolous People, Who Make Up Society, Are Organic, And Society Is A Hospital Of Incurables.

The Divine Gift Is Ever The Instant Life, Which Receives And Uses And Creates, And Can Well Bury The Old In The Omnipotency With Which Nature Decomposes All Her Harvest For Recomposition.

So Shall We Come To Look At The World With New Eyes.

I Have Never Met A Man Who Was Not My Superior In Some Particular.

When He Is Pushed, Tormented, Defeated, He Has A Chance To Learn Something; He Has Been Put On His Wits, On His Manhood; He Has Gained Facts; Learns His Ignorance; Is Cured Of The Insanity Of Conceit; Has Got Moderation And Real Skill.

Nothing Is Great But The Inexhaustible Wealth Of Nature.

Wisdom Is Like Electricity. There Is No Permanently Wise Man, But Men Capable Of Wisdom, Who, Being Put Into Certain Company, Or Other Favorable Conditions, Become Wise For A Short Time, As Glasses Rubbed Acquire Electric Power For A While.

When A Resolute Young Fellow Steps Up To The Great Bully, The World, And Takes Him Boldly By The Beard, He Is Often Surprised To Find It Comes Off In His Hand, And That It Was Only Tied On To Scare Away The Timid Adventurers.

We Are The Children Of Many Sires, And Every Drop Of Blood In Us In Its Turn Betrays Its Ancestor.

It Is A Fact Often Observed, That Men Have Written Good Verses Under The Inspiration Of Passion, Who Cannot Write Well Under Other Circumstances.

Unless You Try To Do Something Beyond What You Have Already Mastered, You Will Never Grow.

My Good Hoe As It Bites The Ground Revenges My Wrongs, And I Have Less Lust To Bite My Enemies. In The Smoothing The Rough Hillocks, I Smooth My Temper.

Is Not Prayer Also A Study Of Truth,--a Sally Of The Soul Into The Unfound Infinite? No Man Ever Prayed Heartily, Without Learningsomething. But When A Faithful Thinker, Resolute To Detach Every Object From Personal Relations, And See It In The Light Of Thought, Shall, At The Same Time, Kindle Science With The Fire Of The Holiest Affections, Then Will God Go Forth Anew Into Creation.

Life Is A Search After Power.

Cities Force Growth And Make Men Talkative And Entertaining, But They Make Them Artificial. What Possesses Interest For Us Is Thenatural Of Each, His Constitutional Excellence. This Is Forever A Surprise, Engaging And Lovely; We Cannot Be Satiated With Knowing It, And About It; And It Is This Which The Conversation With Nature Cherishes And Guards.

Man Is The End Of Nature; Nothing So Easily Organizes Itself In Every Part Of The Universe As He; No Moss, No Lichen Is So Easilyborn; And He Takes Along With Him And Puts Out From Himself The Whole Apparatus Of Society And Condition Extempore, As An Army Encamps In A Desert, And Where All Was Just Now Blowing Sand, Creates A White City In An Hour, A Government, A Market, A Place For Feasting, For Conversation, And For Love.

Go Oft To The House Of Thy Friend, For Weeds Choke The Unused Path.

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.

Love Is Our Highest Word And The Synonym Of God.

For Every Benefit You Receive A Tax Is Levied.

The Task Ahead Of Us Is Never As Great As The Power Behind Us.

Nature Has Made Up Her Mind That What Cannot Defend Itself Shall Not Be Defended.

Life Is An Ecstasy. Life Is Sweet As Nitrous Oxide.

[t]omorrow Is A New Day. You Shall Begin It Well & Serenely, & With Too High A Spirit To Be Cumbered With Your Old Nonsense. This Day ... Is Too Dear With Its Hopes & Invitations To Waste A Moment On The Rotten Yesterdays.

I Have Thought A Sufficient Measure Of Civilization Is The Influence Of Good Women.

I Appeal From Your Customs. I Must Be Myself. I Cannot Break Myself Anylonger For You, Or You. If You Can Love Me For What I Am, We Shall Bethe Happier. If You Cannot, I Will Still Seek To Deserve That Youshould. I Will Not Hide My Tastes Or Aversions. I Will So Trust Thatwhat Is Deep Is Holy, That I Will Do Strongly Before The Sun And Moonwhatever Inly Rejoices Me, And The Heart Appoints. If You Are Noble, Iwill Love You; If You Are Not, I Will Not Hurt You And Myself Byhypocritical Attentions. If You Are True, But Not In The Same Truthwith Me, Cleave To Your Companions; I Will Seek My Own.

I Am Present At The Sowing Of The Seed Of The World. With A Geometry Of Sunbeams, The Soul Lays The Foundations Of Nature.

All Great Masters Are Chiefly Distinguished By The Power Of Adding A Second, A Third, And Perhaps A Fourth Step In A Continuous Line. Many A Man Has Taken The First Step. With Every Additional Step You Enhance Immensely The Value Of Your First.

Music And Wine Are One.

We Must Set Up A Strong Present Tense Against All Rumors Of Wrath, Past And To Come.

The Word Miracle, As Pronounced By Christian Churches, Gives A False Impression; It Is Monster. It Is Not One With The Blowing Clover And The Falling Rain.

There Are Many Faculties In Man, Each Of Which Takes Its Turn Of Activity, And That Faculty Which Is Paramount In Any Period And Exerts Itself Through The Strongest Nation, Determines The Civility Of That Age: And Each Age Thinks Its Own The Perfection Of Reason.

There Is No Better Way To Exercise The Imagination Than The Study Of The Law.

A Man In The View Of Absolute Goodness, Adores, With Total Humility. Every Step Downward, Is A Step Upward. The Man Who Renounceshimself, Comes To Himself.

But Wise Men Pierce This Rotten Diction And Fasten Words Again To Visible Things; So That Picturesque Language Is At Once A Commanding Certificate That He Who Employs It, Is A Man In Alliance With Truth And God.

Live In The Sunshine.

Public Opinion, I Am Sorry To Say, Will Bear A Great Deal Of Nonsense. There Is Scarcely Any Absurdity So Gross, Whether In Religion, Politics, Science Or Manners, Which It Will Not Bear.

Our Strength Grows Out Of Our Weakness.

The First Farmer Was The First Man, And All Historic Nobility Rests On Possession And Use Of Land.

You Cannot Do A Kindness Too Soon, For You Never Know How Soon It Will Be Too Late.

Genius Appeals To The Future.

Let Us, If We Must Have Great Actions, Make Our Own So. All Action Is Of Infinite Elasticity, And The Least Admits Of Being Inflated With Celestial Air, Until It Eclipses The Sun And Moon.

Every Ship Is A Romantic Object, Except That We Sail In.

But Genius Is Religious. It Is A Larger Imbibing Of The Common Heart.

The Virtues Of Society Are Vices Of The Saint. The Terror Of Reform Is The Discovery That We Must Cast Away Our Virtues, Or What We Have Always Esteemed Such, Into The Same Pit That Has Consumed Our Grosser Vices.

Every Materialist Will Be An Idealist; But An Idealist Can Never Go Backward To Be A Materialist.

Great Men, Great Nations, Have Not Been Boasters And Buffoons, But Perceivers Of The Terror Of Life, And Have Manned Themselves To Face It.

It Is The Dissenter, The Theorist, The Aspirant, Who Is Quitting This Ancient Domain To Embark On Seas Of Adventure, Who Engages Our Interest. Omitting Then For The Present All Notice Of The Stationary Class, We Shall Find That The Movement Party Divides Itself Into Two Classes, The Actors, And The Students.

Never Self-possessed, Or Prudent, Love Is All Abandonment.

The Senses Interfere Everywhere, And Mix Their Own Structure With All They Report Of.

In Every Man's Memory, With The Hours When Life Culminated Are Usually Associated Certain Books Which Met His Views.

The Great Make Its Feel, First Of All, The Indifference Of Circumstances. They Call Into Activity The Higher Perceptions, And Subdue The Low Habits Of Comfort And Luxury; But The Higher Perceptions Find Their Objects Everywhere; Only The Low Habits Need Palaces And Banquets.

A Good Form Strikes All Eyes Pleasantly, Long Before They Have Any Science On The Subject; And A Beautiful Face Sets Twenty Hearts In Palpitation, Prior To All Consideration Of The Mechanical Proportions Of The Features And Head.

Let A Man Attain The Highest And Broadest Culture That Any American Has Possessed, Then Let Him Die By Sea-storm, Railroad Collision, Or Other Accident, And All America Will Acquiesce That The Best Thing Has Happened To Him; That, After The Education Has Gone Far, Such Is The Expensiveness Of America, That The Best Use To Put A Fine Person To Is To Drown Him To Save His Board.

We Shun The Rugged Battle Of Fate Where Strength Is Born.

He Only Is A Well-made Man Who Has A Good Determination.

Those Who Stay Away From The Election Think That One Vote Will Do No Good. 'tis But One Step More To Think One Vote Will Do No Harm.

Bonaparte Knew But One Merit, And Rewarded In One And The Same Way The Good Soldier, The Good Astronomer, The Good Poet, The Good Player.

The Book Written Against Fame And Learning Has The Author's Name On The Title-page.

It Is Easy To Carp At Colleges, And The College, If He Will Wait For It, Will Have Its Own Turn. Genius Exists There Also, But Will Not Answer A Call Of A Committee Of The House Of Commons. It Is Rare, Precious, Eccentric, And Darkling.

[d]ivine Providence... Keeps The Universe Open In Every Direction To The Soul.

Tis The Good Reader That Makes The Good Book; A Good Head Cannot Read Amiss: In Every Book He Finds Passages Which Seem Confidences Or Asides Hidden From All Else And Unmistakeably Meant For His Ear.

Every Man Is As Lazy As He Dares To Be.

The Intellect Is Vagabond, And Our System Of Education Fosters Restlessness. Our Minds Travel When Our Bodies Are Forced To Stay At Home. We Imitate; And What Is Imitation But The Travelling Of The Mind?

Tart, Cathartic Virtue.

We Know That Madness Belongs To Love,--what Power To Paint A Vile Object In Hues Of Heaven.

The Poise Of A Plant, The Bended Tree Recovering Itself From The Strong Wind, The Vital Resources Of Every Vegetable And Animal, Are Also Demonstrations Of The Self-sufficing, And Therefore Self-relying Soul. All History From Its Highest To Its Trivial Passages Is The Various Record Of This Power.

Perception Is A Mirror Not A Fact. And What I Look On Is My State Of Mind, Reflected Outward.

Be Not The Slave Of Your Own Past - Plunge Into The Sublime Seas, Dive Deep, And Swim Far.

I Am A Part And Parcel Of God.

Let A Man Behave In His Own House As A Guest.

The Greatest Discoveries Are Those That Shed Light Unto Ourselves.

Men Do Not Believe In The Power Of Education. We Do Not Think We Can Speak To Divine Sentiments In Man, And We Do Not Try. We Renounce All High Aims.

A Mind Might Ponder Its Thought For An Epoch, And Not Gain So Much Self-knowledge As The Passion Of Love Shall Teach In A Day.

Man Is A Stream Whose Source Is Hidden. Our Being Is Descending Into Us From We Know Not Whence.

Thoughts Rule The World.

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

It Is Said That When Manners Are Licentious, A Revolution Is Always Near: The Virtue Of Woman Being The Main Girth And Bandage Ofsociety; Because A Man Will Not Lay Up An Estate For Children Any Longer Than Whilst He Believes Them To Be His Own.

What Is Addressed To Us For Contemplation Does Not Threaten Us, But Makes Us Intellectual Beings.

When I Walk Up The Piazza Of Santa Croce I Feel As If It Were Not A Florentine Nor An European Church But A Church Built By And For The Human Race.

'well,' Said Red Jacket [to Someone Complaining That He Had Not Enough Time], 'i Suppose You Have All There Is.'

In The Morning A Man Walks With His Whole Body; In The Evening, Only With His Legs. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals And Miscellaneous Notebooks Greek Architecture Is The Perfect Flowering Of Geometry.

Great Causes Are Never Tried On Their Merits; But The Cause Is Reduced To Particulars To Suit The Size Of The Partizans, And The Contention Is Ever Hottest On Minor Matters.

The Torments Of Martyrdom Are Probably Most Keenly Felt By The Bystanders.

In The Actual World--the Painful Kingdom Of Time And Place--dwell Care, And Canker, And Fear. With Thought, With The Ideal, Is Immortal Hilarity, The Rose Of Joy.

For He That Feeds Men Serveth Few; He Serves All Who Dares Be True.

Isolation Must Precede True Society.

For Beauty Is God's Handwriting...a Nd, Thank God For It As A Cup Of His Blessing.

Christian Inspirational

All Promise Outruns Performance.

The Intellect Searches Out The Absolute Order Of Things As They Stand In The Mind Of God, And Without The Colors Of Affection. The Intellectual And The Active Powers Seem To Succeed Each Other, And The Exclusive Activity Of The One Generates The Exclusive Activity Of The Other. There Is Something Unfriendly In Each To The Other, But They Are Like The Alternate Periods Of Feeding And Working In Animals; Each Prepares And Will Be Followed By The Other.

Desire Is Possibility Seeking Expression.

The Socialism Of Our Day Has Done Good Service In Setting Men To Thinking How Certain Civilizing Benefits, Now Only Enjoyed By Theopulent, Can Be Enjoyed By All.

Men Are So Charmed With Valor That They Have Pleased Themselves With Being Called Lions, Leopards, Eagles And Dragons, From The Animals Contemporary With Us In The Geologic Formations.

Jesus Christ Belonged To The True Race Of The Prophets. He Saw With An Open Eye The Mystery Of The Soul. . Alone In All History He Estimated The Greatness Of Man.

A Gothic Cathedral Affirms That It Was Done By Us And Not Done By Us.

A Cynic Can Chill And Dishearten With A Single Word.

The Sensual Man Conforms Thoughts To Things; The Poet Conforms Things To His Thoughts.

All Violence, All That Is Dreary And Repels, Is Not Power, But The Absence Of Power.

Envy Is The Tax Which All Distinction Must Pay.

Do What You're Afraid To Do.

The Power Men Possess To Annoy Me I Give Them By A Weak Curiosity

The True Test Of Civilization Is Not The Census, Nor The Size Of Cities, Nor The Crops - No, But The Kind Of Man The Country Turns Out.

Who Is He That Shall Control Me? Why May Not I Act And Speak And Write And Think With Entire Freedom? What Am I To The Universe, Or, The Unvierse, What Is It To Me? Who Hath Forged The Chains Of Wrong And Right, Of Opinion And Custom? And Must I Wear Them?

Every Body We Know Surrounds Himself With A Fine House, Fine Books, Conservatory, Gardens, Equipage, And All Manner Of Toys, As Screens To Interpose Between Himself And His Guest. Does It Not Seem As If Man Was Of A Very Sly, Elusive Nature, And Dreaded Nothing So Much As A Full Rencontre Front To Front With His Fellow?

Speak What You Think Today In Hard Words And Tomorrow Speak What Tomorrow Thinks In Hard Words Again, Though It Contradict Every Thing You Said Today.

All Public Facts Are To Be Individualized, All Private Facts Are To Be Generalized.

Thy Dangerous Glances Make Women Of Men; New-born, We Are Melting Into Nature Again.

Truth Gathers Itself Spotless And Unhurt After All Our Surrenders And Concealments And Partisanship; Never Hurt By The Treachery Or Ruin Of Its Best Defenders, Whether Luther, Or William Penn, Or St. Paul.

Bare Lists Of Words Are Found Suggestive To An Imaginative And Excited Mind.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

If We Will Not Interfere With Our Thought, But Will Act Entirely, Or See How The Thing Stands In God, We Know The Particular Thing, And Every Thing, And Every Man.

If In The Least Particular, One Could Derange The Order Of Nature, Who Would Accept The Gift Of Life?

Of Course, He Who Has Put Forth His Total Strength In Fit Actions, Has The Richest Return Of Wisdom.

Every Book Is Good To Read Which Sets The Reader In A Working Mood.

Science Is Organized Knowledge. Wisdom Is Organized Life. Football Is Four 15-minute Quarters. Plus Timeouts And Commercials.

No Nation Has Produced Anything Like His Equal. There Is No Quality In The Human Mind, There Is No Class Of Topics, There Is No Region Of Thought, In Which He Has Not Soared Or Descended, And None In Which He Has Not Said The Commanding Word.

Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth.

Activity Is Contagious.

Every Mind Is Different; And The More It Is Unfolded, The More Pronounced Is That Difference.

That Is Ever The Difference Between The Wise And The Unwise: The Latter Wonders At What Is Unusual; The Wise Man Wonders At The Usual.

I Like A Man Who Likes To See A Fine Barn As Well As A Good Tragedy.

We Find Delight In The Beauty And Happiness Of Children That Makes The Heart Too Big For The Body.

In The Country, Without Any Interference From The Law, The Agricultural Life Favors The Permanence Of Families.

Intellect Is A Fire; Rash And Pitiless It Melts This Wonderful Bone-house Which Is Called Man. Genius Even, As It Is The Greatestgood, Is The Greatest Harm.

Do What You Know And Perception Is Converted Into Character.

Tis Weak And Vicious People Who Cast The Blame On Fate. The Right Use Of Fate Is To Bring Up Our Conduct To The Loftiness Of Nature.

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.

If We Could Have Any Security Against Moods! If The Profoundest Prophet Could Be Holden To His Words, And The Hearer Who Is Readyto Sell All And Join The Crusade, Could Have Any Certificate That To-morrow His Prophet Shall Not Unsay His Testimony!

Souls Are Not Saved In Bundles.

Happiness Is A Perfume You Cannot Pour On Others Without Getting Some On Yourself.

Revolutions Go Not Backward.

We Are Reformers In The Spring And Summer, But In Autumn We Stand By The Old. Reformers In The Morning, And Conservers At Night.

I Read The Other Day Some Verses Written By An Eminent Painter Which Were Original And Not Conventional. The Soul Always Hears An Admonition In Such Lines, Let The Subject Be What It May. The Sentiment They Instil Is Of More Value Than Any Thought They May Contain. To Believe Your Own Thought, To Believe That What Is True For You In Your Private Heart Is True For All Men, - That Is Genius.

But In Every Constitution Some Large Degree Of Animal Vigor Is Necessary As Material Foundation For The Higher Qualities Of The Art.

Nature Is The Symbol Of Spirit.

Without Looking, Then, To Those Extraordinary Social Influences Which Are Now Acting In Precisely This Direction, But Only At Whatis Inevitably Doing Around Us, I Think We Must Regard The Land As A Commanding And Increasing Power On The Citizen, The Sanative And Americanizing Influence, Which Promises To Disclose New Virtues For Ages To Come.

The Domestic Man, Who Loves No Music So Well As His Kitchen Clock, And The Airs Which The Logs Sing To Him As They Burn On The Hearth, Has Solaces Which Others Never Dream Of.

Enthusiasm Is One Of The Most Powerful Engines Of Success. When You Do A Thing, Do It With All Your Might.

Enthusiasm For Life

But I Go With My Friend To The Shore Of Our Little River, And With One Stroke Of The Paddle, I Leave The Village Politics And Personalities, Yes, And The World Of Villages And Personalities Behind, And Pass Into A Delicate Realm Of Sunset And Moonlight, Too Bright Almost For Spotted Man To Enter Without Novitiate And Probation.

The Betrothed And Accepted Lover Has Lost The Wildest Charms Of His Maiden By Her Acceptance. She Was Heaven While He Pursued Her, But She Cannot Be Heaven If She Stoops To One Such As He!

It Is The Same Among The Men And Women, As Among The Silent Trees; Always A Referred Existence, An Absence, Never A Presence And Satisfaction. Is It, That Beauty Can Never Be Grasped? In Persons And In Landscape Is Equally Inaccessible?

Power Obeys Reality, And Not Appearances; Power Is According To Quality, And Not Quantity.

We Rail At Trade, But The Historian Of The World Will See That It Was The Principle Of Liberty; That It Settled America, And Destroyed Feudalism, And Made Peace And Keeps Peace; That It Will Abolish Slavery.

All Is A Riddle, And The Key To A Riddle...is Another Riddle.

Was Never Secret History But Birds Tell It In The Bowers.

To Have Played And Laughed With Enthusiasm, And Sung With Exultation - This To To Have Succeeded.

The House Praises The Carpenter.

No Man Can Be Criticised But By A Greater Than He. Do Not, Then, Read The Reviews.

Plato Is Philosophy, And Philosophy, Plato,--at Once The Glory And The Shame Of Mankind, Since Neither Saxon Nor Roman Have Availed To Add Any Idea To His Categories.

So In Writing, There Is Always A Right Word, And Every Other Than That Is Wrong. There Is No Beauty In Words Except In Their Collocation. The Effect Of A Fanciful Word Misplaced, Is Like That Of A Horn Of Exquisite Polish Growing On A Human Head.

The Riddle Of The Age Has For Each A Private Solution.

A Man Is Reputed To Have Thought And Eloquence; He Cannot, For All That, Say A Word To His Cousin Or His Uncle. They Accuse His Silence With As Much Reason As They Would Blame The Insignificance Of A Dial In The Shade. In The Sun It Will Mark The Hour. Among Those Who Enjoy His Thought, He Will Regain His Tongue.

Man Is Not A Farmer, Or A Professor, Or An Engineer, But He Is All. Man Is Priest, And Scholar, And Statesman, And Producer, And Soldier.

Our Country, Customs, Laws, Our Ambitions, And Our Notions Of Fit And Fair-all These We Never Made; We Found Them Ready-made; We But Quote From Them. What Would Remain To Me If This Art Of Appropriation Were Derogatory To Genius? Every One Of My Writings Has Been Furnished To Me By A Thousand Different Persons, A Thousand Things; Wise And Foolish Have Brought Me, Without Suspecting It, The Offering Of Their Thoughts, Faculties, And Experience. My Work Is An Aggregation Of Beings Taken From The Whole Of Nature. It Bears The Name Of Goethe.

It Is Contended That Those Who Have Been Bred At Eton, Harrow, Rugby, And Westminster, That The Public Sentiment Within Each Of Those Schools Is High-toned And Manly; That, In Their Playgrounds, Courage Is Universally Admired, Meanness Despised, Manly Feelings And Generous Conduct Are Encouraged: That An Unwritten Code Of Honor Deals To The Spoiled Child Of Rank, And To The Child Of Upstart Wealth An Even-handed Justice, Purges Their Nonsense Out Of Both, And Does All That Can Be Done To Make Them Gentlemen.

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

What Art Can Paint Or Gild Any Object In After Life With The Glow Which Nature Gives To The First Baubles Of Childhood? St. Peter's Cannot Have The Magical Power Over Us That The Red And Gold Covers Of Our First Picture-book Possessed.

Every Spirit Makes Its House, And We Can Give A Shrewd Guess From The House To The Inhabitant.

Man Is Timid And Apologetic; He Is No Longer Upright; He Dares Not Say "i Think," "i Am," But Quotes Some Saint Or Sage.

Nature Arms Each Man With Some Faculty Which Enables Him To Do Easily Some Feat Impossible To Any Other.

So Shall We Come To Look At The World With New Eyes. It Shall Answer The Endless Inquiry Of The Intellect, — What Is Truth? And Of The Affections, — What Is Good? By Yielding Itself Passive To The Educated Will. ... Build, Therefore, Your Own World. As Fast As You Conform Your Life To The Pure Idea In Your Mind, That Will Unfold Its Great Proportions. A Correspondent Revolution In Things Will Attend The Influx Of The Spirit.

The Solar System Has No Anxiety About Its Reputation.

Not Out Of Those, On Whom Systems Of Education Have Exhausted Their Culture, Comes The Helpful Giant To Destroy The Old Or To Build The New, But Out Of Unhandselled Savage Nature, Out Of Terrible Druids And Berserkirs, Come At Last Alfred And Shakespeare.

It Is Very Odd That Nature Should Be So Unscrupulous. She Is No Saint . . .

Life Is To Be Lived, Not Controlled.

Great Is Paint; Nay, God Is The Painter; And We Rightly Accuse The Critic Who Destroys Too Many Illusions. Society Does Not Love Its Unmaskers.

If You Would Know What Nobody Knows, Read What Everybody Reads, Just One Year Afterwards.

It Requires A Great Deal Of Boldness And A Great Deal Of Caution To Make A Great Fortune, And When You Have It, It Requires Ten Times As Much Skill To Keep It.

New York Is A Sucked Orange.

Genius Is Its Own End.

What A Benefit Would The American Government, Not Yet Relieved Of Its Extreme Need, Render To Itself, And To Every City, Village And Hamlet In The States, If It Would Tax Whiskey And Rum Almost To The Point Of Prohibition! Was It Bonaparte Who Said That He Found Vices Very Good Patriots? "he Got Five Millions From The Love Of Brandy, And He Should Be Glad To Know Which Of The Virtues Would Pay Him As Much." Tobacco And Opium Have Broad Backs, And Will Cheerfully Carry The Load Of Armies, If You Choose To Make Them Pay High For Such Joy As They Give And Such Harm As They Do.

Solitary Converse With Nature; For Thence Are Ejaculated Sweet And Dreadful Words Never Uttered In Libraries. Ah! The Spring Days, The Summer Dawns, And October Woods!

He That Can Heroically Endure Adversity Will Bear Prosperity With Equal Greatest Of The Soul; For The Mind That Cannot Be Dejected By The Former Is Not Likely To Be Transported Without The Latter.

We Are Too Civil To Books. For A Few Golden Sentences We Will Turn Over And Actually Read A Volume Of Four Or Five Hundred Pages.

If The Single Man Plant Himself Indomitably On His Instincts, And There Abide, The Huge World Will Come Round To Him.

Consider What You Have In The Smallest Well-chosen Library-a Company Of The Wisest And Wittiest Men Which Can Be Plucked Out Of All Civilized Countries In A Thousand Years. The Men Themselves Were Then Hidden And Inaccessible. They Were Solitary, Impatient Of Interruption, And Fenced By Etiquette. But Now They Are Immortal, And The Thought They Did Not Reveal, Even To Their Bosom Friends, Is Here Written Out In Transparent Words Of Light To Us, Who Are Strangers Of Another Age.

Earth Laughs In Flowers.

I Have Heard That Whoever Loves Is In No Condition Old. I Have Heard That Whenever The Name Of Man Is Spoken, The Doctrine Of Immortality Is Announced; It Cleaves To His Constitution. The Mode Of It Baffles Our Wit, And No Whisper Comes To Us From The Other Side. But The Inference From The Working Of Intellect, Hiving Knowledge, Hiving Skill,--at The End Of Life Just Ready To Be Born,--affirms The Inspirations Of Affection And Of The Moral Sentiment.

The Efforts Which We Make To Escape From Our Destiny Only Serve To Lead Us Into It.

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

Nothing In Nature Is Exhausted In Its First Use...in God, Every End Is Converted Into A New Means.

The Mark Of A Man Of The World Is Absence Of Pretension.

My Friends Have Come To Me Unsought. The Great God Gave Them To Me. By Oldest Right, By The Divine Affinity Of Virtue With Itself,i Find Them, Or Rather Not I, But The Deity In Me And In Them Derides And Cancels The Thick Walls Of The Individual Character, Relation, Age, Sex, Circumstance, At Which He Usually Connives, And Now Makes Many One.

Pride Ruined The Angels, Their Shame Them Restores; And The Joy That Is Sweetest Lurks In Stings Of Remorse.

Happy Is He Who Looks Only Into His Work To Know If It Will Succeed, Never Into The Times Or The Public Opinion; And Who Writes From The Love Of Imparting Certain Thoughts And Not From The Necessity Of Sale - Who Writes Always To The Unknown Friend.

The Experience Of Each New Age Requires A New Confession, And The World Seems Always Waiting For Its Poet

Meantime The Education Of The General Mind Never Stops. The Reveries Of The True And Simple Are Prophetic. What The Tender Poeticyouth Dreams, And Prays, And Paints Today, But Shuns The Ridicule Of Saying Aloud, Shall Presently Be The Resolutions Of Public Bodies, Then Shall Be Carried As Grievance And Bill Of Rights Through Conflict And War, And Then Shall Be Triumphant Law And Establishment For A Hundred Years, Until It Gives Place, In Turn, To New Prayers And Pictures.

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

A Beautiful Woman Is A Picture Which Drives All Beholders Nobly Mad.

The Growth Of The Intellect Is Spontaneous In Every Expansion. The Mind That Grows Could Not Predict The Times, The Means, The Mode Of That Spontaneity. God Enters By A Private Door Into Every Individual.

There Is Creative Reading As Well As Creative Writing.

Practice Radical Humility." He (or She)who Masters The Art Of Humility Cannot Be Humiliated.

A Man Is A Hero, Not Because He Is Braver Than Anyone Else, But Because He Is Brave For 10 Minutes Longer.

A Chief Event Of Life Is The Day In Which We Have Encountered A Mind That Startled Us.

A Farm Is A Good Thing, When It Begins And Ends With Itself, And Does Not Need A Salary, Or A Shop, To Eke It Out.

Meet Your Failure Nobly, And It Will Not Differ From Success.

If You Meet A Sectary, Or A Hostile Partisan, Never Recognize The Dividing Lines; But Meet On What Common Ground Remains,--if Onlythat The Sun Shines, And The Rain Rains For Both; The Area Will Widen Very Fast, And Ere You Know It The Boundary Mountains, On Which The Eye Had Fastened, Have Melted Into Air.

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