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The Book, The College, The School Of Art, The Institution Of Any Kind, Stop With Some Past Utterance Of Genius. . . . They Look Backward And Not Forward. But Genius Looks Forward: The Eyes Of Man Are Set In His Forehead, Not In His Hindhead: Man Hopes: Genius Creates. Whatever Talents May Be, If The Man Create Not, The Pure Efflux Of The Deity Is Not His; - Cinders And Smoke There May Be, But Not Yet Flame.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Book, The College,

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Book, The College, The School Of Art, The Institution Of Any Kind, Stop With Some Past Utterance Of Genius. . . . They Look Backward And Not Forward. But Genius Looks Forward: The Eyes Of Man Are Set In His Forehead, Not In His Hindhead: Man Hopes: Genius Creates. Whatever Talents May Be, If The Man Create Not, The Pure Efflux Of The Deity Is Not His; - Cinders And Smoke There May Be, But Not Yet Flame.

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A Seashell Should Be The Crest Of England, Not Only Because It Represents A Power Built On The Waves, But Also The Hard Finish Ofthe Men. The Englishman Is Finished Like A Cowry Or A Murex.

Out Of Sleeping A Waking, Out Of Waking A Sleep.

My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life. It Is For Itself And Not For A Spectacle. I Much Prefer That It Should Be Of A Lower Strain, So It Be Genuine And Equal, Than That It Should Be Glittering And Unsteady.

Every Discourse Is An Approximate Answer: But It Is Of Small Consequence, That We Do Not Get It Into Verbs And Nouns, Whilst It Abides For Contemplation Forever.

A Gentleman Makes No Noise; A Lady Is Serene.

But Harder Still It Has Proved To Resist And Rule The Dragon Money, With His Paper Wings. Chancellors And Boards Of Trade, Pitt, Peel, And Bobinson, And Their Parliaments, And Their Whole Generation, Adopted False Principles, And Went To Their Graves In The Belief That They Were Enriching The Country Which They Were Impoverishing.

The Education Of The Will Is The Object Of Our Existence.

The Society Of The Energetic Class, In Their Friendly And Festive Meetings, Is Full Of Courage, And Of Attempts, Which Intimidatethe Pale Scholar.

Every Man's Reason Is Sufficient For His Guidance, If Used.

If A Man Will Kick A Fact Out Of The Window, When He Comes Back He Finds It Again In The Chimney Corner.

Manners Have Been Somewhat Cynically Defined To Be A Contrivance Of Wise Men To Keep Fools At A Distance. Fashion Is Shrewd To Detect Those Who Do Not Belong To Her Train, And Seldom Wastes Her Attentions. Society Is Very Swift In Its Instincts, And If You Do Not Belong To It, Resists And Sneers At You, Or Quietly Drops You.

I Wish To Speak With All Respect Of Persons, But Sometimes I Must Pinch Myself To Keep Awake, And Preserve The Due Decorum. They Melt So Fast Into Each Other, That They Are Like Grass And Trees, And It Needs An Effort To Treat Them As Individuals.

We Grant No Dukedoms To The Few, We Hold Like Rights And Shall; Equal On Sunday In The Pew, On Monday In The Mall. For What Avail The Plough Or Sail, Or Land, Or Life, If Freedom Fail?

Men Are Lenses Through Which We Read Our Own Minds.

We Owe To Genius Always The Same Debt, Of Lifting The Curtain From The Common, And Showing Us That Divinities Are Sitting Disguised In The Seeming Gang Of Gypsies And Peddlars.

But In Our Experience, Man Is Cheap And Friendship Wants Its Deep Sense. We Affect To Dwell With Our Friends In Their Absence, But We Do Not; When Deed, Word, Or Letter Comes Not, They Let Us Go.

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

Genius Is Its Own End.

The Artist Always Has The Masters In His Eyes.

I Honor Health As The First Muse.

If Man Has Good Corn, Or Wood, Or Boards, Or Pigs To Sell, Or Can Make Better Chairs Or Knives, Crucibles, Or Church Organs, Than Anybody Else, You Will Find A Broad, Hard-beaten Road To His House, Though It Be In The Woods.

The World Is Nothing, The Man Is All; In Yourself Is The Law Of All Nature, And You Know Not Yet How A Globule Of Sap Ascends; In Yourself Slumbers The Whole Of Reason; It Is For You To Know All, It Is For You To Dare All.

The Best Of Life Is Conversation, And The Greatest Success Is Confidence, Or Perfect Understanding Between Sincere People.

Children Are All Foreigners.

Beauty Is The Mark God Sets On Virtue. Every Natural Action Is Graceful; Every Heroic Act Is Also Decent, And Causes The Place And The Bystanders To Shine.

This Immediate Dependence Of Language Upon Nature, This Conversion Of An Outward Phenomenon Into A Type Of Somewhat In Human Life,never Loses Its Power To Affect Us. It Is This Which Gives That Piquancy To The Conversation Of A Strong-natured Farmer Or Backwoodsman, Which All Men Relish.

It Is Easy To See That A Greater Self-reliance Must Work A Revolution In All The Offices And Relations Of Men; In Their Religion; In Their Education; In Their Pursuits; Their Modes Of Living; Their Association; In Their Property; In Their Speculative Views.

There Are As Many Pillows Of Illusion As Flakes In A Snow-storm. We Wake From One Dream Into Another Dream.

The Soul Knows No Persons.

There Was Never A Man Born So Wise Or Good, But One Or More Companions Came Into The World With Him, Who Delight In His Faculty, And Report It. I Cannot See Without Awe, That No Man Thinks Alone And No Man Acts Alone, But The Divine Assessors Who Came Up With Him Into Life,--now Under One Disguise, Now Under Another,--like A Police In Citizen's Clothes, Walk With Him, Step For Step, Through All Kingdoms Of Time.

No Facts Are To Me Sacred; None Are Profane; I Simply Experiment, An Endless Seeker, With No Past At My Back.

A Day For Toil, An Hour For Sport, But For A Friend Is Life Too Short.

It Is The Essence Of Poetry To Spring, Like The Rainbow Daughter Of Wonder, From The Invisible, To Abolish The Past, And Refuse All History.

Nothing Shall Warp Me From The Belief That Every Man Is A Lover Of Truth. There Is No Pure Lie, No Pure Malignity In Nature. The Entertainment Of The Proposition Of Depravity Is The Last Profligacy And Profanation. There Is No Skepticism, No Atheism But That. Could It Be Received Into Common Belief, Suicide Would Unpeople The Planet.

It In Every Fair Face, Every Fair Sky, Every Fair Flower.

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

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.

There Are Books... Which Rank In Our Life With Parents And Lovers And Passionate Experiences.

We, As We Read, Must Become Greeks, Romans, Turks, Priest And King, Martyr And Executioner; Must Fasten These Images To Some Reality In Our Secret Experience, Or We Shall Learn Nothing Rightly.

Nature Is Full Of Freaks, And Now Puts An Old Head On Young Shoulders, And Then Takes A Young Heart Heating Under Fourscore Winters.

In The Woods, Too, A Man Casts Off His Years, As The Snake His Slough, And At What Period Soever Of Life, Is Always A Child. In The Woods Is Perpetual Youth. Within These Plantations Of God A Decorum And Sanctity Reign, A Perennial Festival Is Dressed, And The Guest Sees Not How He Should Tire Of Them In A Thousand Years. In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

The Only Thing That Can Grow Is The Thing You Give Energy To.

Solitude Is Impractical And Yet Society Is Fatal.

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.

As The Farmer Casts Into The Ground The Finest Ears Of His Grain, The Time Will Come When We Too Shall Hold Nothing Back, But Shall Eagerly Convert More Than We Now Possess Into Means And Powers, When We Shall Be Willing To Sow The Sun And The Moon For Seeds.

The Scholar Was Not Raised By The Sacred Thoughts Amongst Which He Dwelt, But Used Them To Selfish Ends. He Was A Profane Person,and Became A Showman, Turning His Gifts To Marketable Use, And Not To His Own Sustenance And Growth. It Was Found That The Intellect Could Be Independently Developed, That Is, In Separation From The Man, As Any Single Organ Can Be Invigorated, And The Result Was Monstrous.

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

You Send Your Child To The Schoolmaster, But 'tis The Schoolboys Who Educate Him. You Send Him To The Latin Class, But Much Of Histuition Comes, On His Way To School, From The Shop- Windows.

Tis A Short Sight To Limit Our Faith In Laws To Those Of Gravity, Of Chemistry, Of Botany, And So Forth.

I Take This Evanescence And Lubricity Of All Objects, Which Lets Them Slip Through Our Fingers Then When We Clutch Hardest, To Be The Most Unhandsome Part Of Our Condition.

A Man Is A Little Thing Whilst He Works By And For Himself, But, When He Gives Voice To The Rules Of Love And Justice, Is Godlike, His Word Is Current In All Countries; And All Men, Though His Enemies, Are Made His Friends And Obey It As Their Own.

He, Who Loves The Bristle Of Bayonets, Only Sees In Their Glitter What Beforehand He Feels In His Hand.

We Are Sure That, Though We Know Not How, Necessity Does Comport With Liberty, The Individual With The World, My Polarity With Thespirit Of The Times. The Riddle Of The Age Has For Each A Private Solution.

If You Follow The Suburban Fashion In Building A Sumptuous- Looking House For A Little Money, It Will Appear To All Eyes As A Cheap, Dear House.

Not In His Goals But In His Transitions, Man Is Great.

There Is Health In Table Talk And Nursery Play. We Must Wear Old Shoes And Have Aunts And Cousins.

The Case Wouldn't Be Overweight If You Didn't Have So Many Shoes. How Many Do You Really Need? This Pair, For Example, I Swear You Never Even Wore Them.

Life Too Near Paralyses Art.

Though We Love Goodness And Not Stealing, Yet Also We Love Freedom And Not Preaching.

The Multitude Of False Churches Accredits The True Religion.

If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then, By The Devil.

To Make Knowledge Valuable, You Must Have The Cheerfulness Of Wisdom.

One Idea Lights A Thousand Candles.

The Essence Of Friendship Is Entireness, A Total Magnanimity And Trust.

A Man Comes To Measure His Greatness By The Regrets, Envies And Hatreds Of His Competitors.

The Remedy For All Blunders, The Cure Of Blindness, The Cure Of Crime, Is Love.

Universally, The Better Gold The Worse Man. The Political Economist Defies Us To Show Any Gold Mine Country That Is Traversed By Good Roads, Or A Shore Where Pearls Are Found On Which Good Schools Are Erected.

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 Enthusiast Always Finds The Master, The Masters, Whom He Seeks. Always Genius Seeks Genius, Desires Nothing So Much As To Be A Pupil And To Find Those Who Can Lend It Aid To Perfect Itself.

The Difference Between Talent And Genius Is That Talent Says Things Which He Has Never Heard But Once, And Genius Things Which He Has Never Heard.

Life Is Unnecessarily Long. Moments Of Insight, Of Fine Personal Relation, A Smile, A Glance,--what Ample Borrowers Of Eternity They Are!

There Is No Eloquence Without A Man Behind It.

The Simplicity Of The Universe Is Very Different From The Simplicity Of A Machine. The Simplicity Of Nature Is Not That Which May Be Easily Read But Is Inexhaustible. The Last Analysis Can No Wise Be Made.

A Human Being Should Beware How He Laughs, For Then He Shows All His Faults.

Undoubtedly We Have No Questions To Ask Which Are Unanswerable. We Must Trust The Perfection Of The Creation So Far, As To Believe That Whatever Curiosity The Order Of Things Has Awakened In Our Minds, The Order Of Things Can Satisfy. Every Man's Condition Is A Solution In Hieroglyphic To Those Inquiries He Would Put. He Acts It As Life, Before He Apprehends It As Truth.

As A Cure For Worrying, Work Is Better Than Whiskey.

[gratitude Is] The Cheerfulness Of Wisdom.

The Wave Of Evil Washes All Our Institutions Alike.

If We Tire Of The Saints, Shakspeare Is Our City Of Refuge.

Life Is Girt All Round With A Zodiac Of Sciences, The Contributions Of Men Who Have Perished To Add Their Point Of Light To Our Sky. ... These Road-makers On Every Hand Enrich Us. We Must Extend The Area Of Life And Multiply Our Relations. We Are As Much Gainers By Finding A Property In The Old Earth As By Acquiring A New Planet.

The Masses Have No Habit Of Self-reliance Or Original Action.

The Common Experience Is, That The Man Fits Himself As Well As He Can To The Customary Details Of That Work Or Trade He Falls Into, And Tends It As A Dog Turns A Spit. Then He Is Part Of The Machine He Moves; The Man Is Lost.

There Is Always Safety In Valor.

You See, It's All Clear, We Were Meant To Be Here From The Beginning.

Were Meant To Be

Everything Runs To Excess; Every Good Quality Is Noxious If Unmixed.

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.

Pure By Impure Is Not Seen.

The Soul Knows Only The Soul; The Web Of Events Is The Flowing Robe In Which She Is Clothed.

If You Don't Ride In The Rain, You Don't Ride.

Riding Your Bike

For The Time Of Towns Is Tolled From The World By Funereal Chimes, But In Nature The Universal Hours Are Counted By Succeeding Tribes Of Animals And Plants, And By Growth Of Joy On Joy.

An Orator Or Author Is Never Successful Till He Has Learned To Make His Words Smaller Than His Ideas.

Therefore Is Nature Ever The Ally Of Religion: Lends Her All Her Pomp And Riches To The Religious Sentiment.

Everything That Is Popular, It Has Been Said, Deserves The Attention Of Philosophers: And This Is For The Obvious Reason, That Although It May Not Be Of Any Worth In Itself, Yet It Characterizes The People.

It Is Bad Enough That Our Geniuses Cannot Do Anything Useful, But It Is Worse That No Man Is Fit For Society Who Has Fine Traits.he Is Admired At A Distance, But He Cannot Come Near Without Appearing A Cripple.

It Is One Of The Most Beautiful Compensations Of This Life That No Person Can Sincerely Try To Help Another Without Helping Him Or Herself. Serve And You Shall Be Served. If You Love And Serve People, You Cannot, By Any Hiding Or Stratagem, Escape The Remuneration.

Character Wants Room; Must Not Be Crowded On By Persons, Nor Be Judged From Glimpses Got In The Press Of Affairs, Or On Few Occasions. It Needs Perspective, As A Great Building.

I Remember An Answer Which When Quite Young I Was Prompted To Make A Valued Adviser Who Was Wont To Importune Me With The Dear Old Doctrines Of The Church. On My Saying, What Have I To Do With The Sacredness Of Traditions, If I Live Wholly From Within? My Friend Suggested, - "but These Impulses May Be From Below, Not From Above." I Replied, 'they Do Not Seem To Me To Be Such; But If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then From The Devil.'

God Hid The Whole World In Thy Heart.

If The Race Is Good, So Is The Place.

Expediency Of Literature, Reason Of Literature, Lawfulness Of Writing Down A Thought, Is Questioned; Much Is To Say On Both Sides,and, While The Fight Waxes Hot, Thou, Dearest Scholar, Stick To Thy Foolish Task, Add A Line Every Hour, And Between Whiles Add A Line.

No Hope So Bright But Is The Beginning Of Its Own Fulfilment.

He Only Is A Well-made Man Who Has A Good Determination. And The End Of Culture Is Not To Destroy This, God Forbid! But To Train Away All Impediment And Mixture And Leave Nothing But Pure Power.

I Think We Must Get Rid Of Slavery Or We Must Get Rid Of Freedom.

Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit.

We Do What We Must, And Call It By The Best Names We Can, And Would Fain Have The Praise Of Having Intended The Result Which Ensues.

In A Virtuous Action, I Properly Am; In A Virtuous Act, I Add To The World; I Plant Into Deserts Conquered From Chaos And Nothing, And See The Darkness Receding On The Limits Of The Horizon.

Every Word Was Once A Poem. Every New Relation Is A New Word.

Character Is That Which Can Do Without Success.

Every Individual Strives To Grow And Exclude, To The Extremities Of The Universe, And To Impose The Law Of Its Being On Every Other Creature.

To Be Yourself In A World That Is Constantly Trying To Make You Something Else Is The Greatest Accomplishment.

We Swim, Day By Day, On A River Of Delusions, And Are Effectually Amused With Houses And Towns In The Air, Of Which The Men Aboutus Are Dupes. But Life Is A Sincerity.

What You Are Shouts At Me So Loudly That I Can't Hear A Word You Say.

Worst, When This Sensualism Intrudes Into The Education Of Young Women, And Withers The Hope And Affection Of Human Nature, By Teaching That Marriage Signifies Nothing But A Housewife's Thrift, And That Woman's Life Has No Other Aim.

You Cannot Give Anything To A Magnanimous Person. After You Have Served Him, He At Once Puts You In Debt By His Magnanimity.

Nature Is Reckless Of The Individual. When She Has Points To Carry, She Carries Them.

The Evolution Of A Highly Destined Society Must Be Moral; It Must Run In The Grooves Of The Celestial Wheels.

No Orator Can Top The One Who Can Give Good Nicknames.

My Garden Is A Forest Ledge Which Older Forest S Bound; The Banks Slope Down To The Blue Lake-edge, Then Plunge To Depths Profound!

All Men Plume Themselves On The Improvement Of Society, And No Man Improves.

All Goes To Show That The Soul In Man Is Not An Organ, But Animates And Exercises All The Organs; Is Not A Function, Like The Power Of Memory, Of Calculation, Of Comparison, But Uses These As Hands And Feet; Is Not A Faculty, But A Light, Is Not The Intellect Or The Will, But The Master Of The Intellect And The Will; Is The Background Of Our Being, In Which They Lie,--an Immensity Not Possessed And That Cannot Be Possessed.

Scholarship Is To Be Created Not By Compulsion, But By Awakening A Pure Interest In Knowledge.

Ten Percent Of People Can Think, Another Ten Percent Of People Think That They Think, And Eighty Percent Of People Would Rather Die Than Be Made To Think.

Shall We Then Judge A Country By The Majority, Or By The Minority? By The Minority, Surely.

You Cannot Hide Any Secret. If The Artist Succor His Flagging Spirits By Opium Or Wine, His Work Will Characterize Itself As The Effect Of Opium Or Wine. If You Make A Picture Or A Statue, It Sets The Beholder In That State Of Mind You Had When You Made It. If You Spend For Show, On Building, Or Gardening, Or On Pictures, Or On Equipages, It Will So Appear. We Are All Physiognomists And Penetrators Of Character, And Things Themselves Are Detective.

Coolness And Absence Of Heat And Haste Indicate Fine Qualities.

When Fear Enters The Heart Of A Man At Hearing The Names Of Candidates And The Reading Of Laws That Are Proposed, Then Is The State Safe, But When These Things Are Heard Without Regard, As Above Or Below Us, Then Is The Commonwealth Sick Or Dead.

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

In Our Definitions, We Grope After The Spiritual By Describing It As Invisible. The True Meaning Of Spiritual Is Real; That Law Which Executes Itself, Which Works Without Means, And Which Cannot Be Conceived As Not Existing.

I Like The Church, I Like A Cowl, I Love A Prophet Of The Soul; And On My Heart Monastic Aisles Fall Like Sweet Strains Or Pensive Smiles; Yet Not For All His Faith Can See, Would I That Cowled Churchman Be.

Take Egotism Out And You Would Castrate The Benefactors.

The Love That You Withhold Is The Pain That You Carry.

An Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of One Man; As, Monachism Of The Hermit Anthony, The Reformation Of Luther, Quakerism Of Fox, Methodism Of Wesley, Abolition Of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton Called "the Height Of Rome;" And All History Resolves Itself Easily Into The Biography Of A Few Stout And Earnest Persons. Let A Man, Then, Know His Worth, And Keep Things Under His Feet.

A Third Felicity Of Age Is That It Has Found Expression. The Youth Suffers Not Only From Ungratified Desires, But From Powers Untried, And From A Picture In His Mind Of A Career Which Has As Yet No Outward Reality. He Is Tormented With The Want Of Correspondence Between Things And Thoughts.

If The Colleges Were Better, If They Had The Power Of Imparting Valuable Thought, Creative Principles, Truths Which Become Powers, Thoughts Which Become Talents, - If They Could Cause That A Mind Not Profound Should Become Profound, - We Should All Rush To Their Gates: Instead Of Contriving Inducements To Draw Students, You Would Need To Set Police At The Gates To Keep Order In The In-rushing Multitude.

Some Eyes Threaten Like A Loaded And Levelled Pistol, And Others Are As Insulting As Hissing Or Kicking; Some Have No More Expression Than Blueberries, While Others Are As Deep As A Well Which You Can Fall Into.

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.

Let The Bird Sing Without Deciphering The Song.

The Power Which Resides In Him Is New In Nature, And None But He Knows What That Is Which He Can Do, Nor Does He Know Until He Has Tried.

In Every Landscape, The Point Of Astonishment Is The Meeting Of The Sky And The Earth, And That Is Seen From The First Hillock Aswell As From The Top Of The Alleghanies. The Stars At Night Stoop Down Over The Brownest, Homeliest Common, With All The Spiritual Magnificence Which They Shed On The Campagna, Or On The Marble Deserts Of Egypt.

The Perception Of The Comic Is A Tie Of Sympathy With Other Men, A Pledge Of Sanity, And A Protection From Those Perverse Tendencies And Gloomy Insanities In Which Fine Intellects Sometimes Lose Themselves. A Rogue Alive To The Ludicrous Is Still Convertible. If That Sense Is Lost, His Fellow-men Can Do Little For Him.

In Nature, All Is Useful, All Is Beautiful

Astronomy To The Selfish Becomes Astrology.

Anatomy And Physiology

The Less Government We Have The Better.

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.

You Cannot Do A Kindness Too Soon.

If A Man Sits Down To Think, He Is Immediately Asked If He Has A Headache.

Great Believers Are Always Reckoned Infidels, Impracticable, Fantastic, Atheistic, And Really Men Of No Account. The Spiritualist Finds Himself Driven To Express His Faith By A Series Of Skepticisms.

A Believer, A Mind Whose Faith Is Consciousness, Is Never Disturbed Because Other Persons Do Not Yet See The Fact Which He Sees.

Nature, Through All Her Kingdoms, Insures Herself.

You Must Elect Your Work; You Shall Take What Your Brains Can, And Drop All The Rest. Only So Can That Amount Of Vital Force Accumulate Which Can Make The Step From Knowing To Doing. No Matter How Much Faculty Of Idle Seeing A Man Has, The Step From Knowing To Doing Is Rarely Taken. It Is A Step Out Of A Chalk Circle Of Imbecility Into Fruitfulness.

Keep The Town For Occasions, But The Habits Should Be Formed In Retirement.

A Man Must Thank His Defects, And Stand In Some Terror Of His Talents. A Transcendent Talent Draws So Largely On His Forces As Tolame Him; A Defect Pays Him Revenues On The Other Side.

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.

Hither Rolls The Storm Of Heat; I Feel Its Finer Billows Beat Like A Sea Which Me Infolds; Heat With Viewless Fingers Moulds, Swells, And Mellows, And Matures, Paints, And Flavors, And Allures, Bird And Brier Inly Warms, Still Enriches And Transforms, Gives The Reed And Lily Length, Adds To Oak And Oxen Strength, Transforming What It Doth Infold, Life Out Of Death, New Out Of Old.

Only To Youth Will Spring Be Spring.

Evil Is Merely Privative, Not Absolute: It Is Like Cold, Which Is The Privation Of Beat.

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

Enthusiasm For Life

People Forget That It Is The Eye Which Makes The Horizon, And The Rounding Mind's Eye Which Makes This Or That Man A Type Or Representative Of Humanity With The Name Of Hero Or Saint.

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity. All Men, All Things, The State, The Church, Yea The Friends Of The Heart Are Phantasms And Unreal Beside The Sanctuary Of The Heart. With So Much Awe, With So Much Fear, Let It Be Respected.

The Axioms Of Physics Translate The Laws Of Ethics. Thus, "the Whole Is Greater Than Its Part;" "reaction Is Equal To Action;" "the Smallest Weight May Be Made To Lift The Greatest, The Difference Of Weight Being Compensated By Time;" And Many The Like Propositions, Which Have An Ethical As Well As Physical Sense. These Propositions Have A Much More Extensive And Universal Sense When Applied To Human Life, Than When Confined To Technical Use.

We See Young Men Who Owe Us A New World, So Readily And Lavishly They Promise, But They Never Acquit The Debt; They Die Young Anddodge The Account: Or If They Live, They Lose Themselves In The Crowd.

Daughter Of Heaven And Earth, Coy Spring, With Sudden Passion Languishing, Teaching Barren Moors To Smile, Painting Pictures Mile On Mile, Holds A Cup Of Cowslip Wreaths Whence A Smokeless Incense Breathes.

Fashion Understands Itself; Good-breeding And Personal Superiority Of Whatever Country Readily Fraternize With Those Of Every Other. The Chiefs Of Savage Tribes Have Distinguished Themselves In London And Paris, By The Purity Of Their Tournure.

Think Me Not Unkind And Rude That I Walk Alone In Grove And Glen; I Go To The God Of The Wood To Fetch His Word To Men.

Man Is The Will, And Woman The Sentiment. In This Ship Of Humanity, Will Is The Rudder, And Sentiment The Sail; When Woman Affects To Steer, The Rudder Is Only A Masked Sail.

All Great Successes Are The Triumph Of Persistence.

Invention Breeds Invention.

Universities Are Of Course Hostile To Geniuses.

Yet These Uneasy Pleasures And Fine Pains Are For Curiosity, And Not For Life.

Freedom Is The Essence Of This Faith. It Has For Its Object Simply To Make Men Good And Wise. Its Institutions Then Should Be As Flexible As The Wants Of Men. That Form Out Of Which The Life And Suitableness Have Departed Should Be As Worthless In Its Eyes As The Dead Leaves That Are Falling Around Us.

Desire Is Possibility Seeking Expression.

Every Person Has His Or Her Own Vocation-talent Is The Call.

Do Not Tell Me Of My Obligation To Put All Poor Men In Good Situations. Are They My Poor? I Tell Thee, Thou Foolish Philanthropist, That I Grudge The Dollar, The Dime, The Cent, I Give To Such Men As Do Not Belong To Me And To Whom I Do Not Belong

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

Music Causes Us To Think Eloquently.

Friendship Should Be Surrounded With Ceremonies And Respects, And Not Crushed Into Corners.

Books Are The Best Of Things If Well Used; If Abused, Among The Worst. They Are Good For Nothing But To Inspire. I Had Better Never See A Book Than Be Warped By Its Attraction Clean Out Of My Own Orbit, And Made A Satellite Instead Of A System.

Human Character Evermore Publishes Itself. The Most Fugitive Deed And Word, The Intimated Purpose, Express Character.

Deeds And Words

If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being.

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.

Alas For The Unhappy Man That Is Called To Stand In The Pulpit, And Not Give The Bread Of Life.

Of Course You Will Insist On Modesty In The Children, And Respect To Their Teachers, But If The Boy Stops You In Your Speech, Cries Out That You Are Wrong And Sets You Right, Hug Him!

Culture Is One Thing And Varnish Is Another.

The Book, The College, The School Of Art, The Institution Of Any Kind, Stop With Some Past Utterance Of Genius. . . . They Look Backward And Not Forward. But Genius Looks Forward: The Eyes Of Man Are Set In His Forehead, Not In His Hindhead: Man Hopes: Genius Creates. Whatever Talents May Be, If The Man Create Not, The Pure Efflux Of The Deity Is Not His; - Cinders And Smoke There May Be, But Not Yet Flame.

Wherever There Is Failure, There Is Some Giddiness, Some Superstition About Luck, Some Step Omitted, Which, Nature Never Pardons.

God Hides Things By Putting Them Near Us.

It Is, In Both Cases, That A Spiritual Life Has Been Imparted To Nature; That The Solid Seeming Block Of Matter Has Been Pervadedand Dissolved By A Thought; That This Feeble Human Being Has Penetrated The Vast Masses Of Nature With An Informing Soul, And Recognised Itself In Their Harmony, That Is, Seized Their Law. In Physics, When This Is Attained, The Memory Disburthens Itself Of Its Cumbrous Catalogues Of Particulars, And Carries Centuries Of Observation In A Single Formula.

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.

Broader And Deeper We Must Write Our Annals, From An Ethical Reformation, From An Influx Of The Ever New, Ever Sanative Conscience, If We Would Trulier Express Our Central And Wide-related Nature, Instead Of This Old Chronology Of Selfishness And Pride To Which We Have Too Long Lent Our Eyes. Already That Day Exists For Us, Shines In On Us At Unawares, But The Path Of Science And Of Letters Is Not The Way Into Nature. The Idiot, The Indian, The Child, And Unschooled Farmer's Boy, Stand Nearer To The Light By Which Nature Is To Be Read, Than The Dissector Or The Antiquary.

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

We Live In A Very Low State Of The World, And Pay Unwilling Tribute To Government Founded On Force. There Is Not, Among The Most Religious And Instructed Men Of The Most Religious And Civil Nations, A Reliance On The Moral Sentiment, And A Sufficient Belief In The Unity Of Things To Persuade Them That Society Can Be Maintained Without Artificial Restraints, As Well As The Solar System; Or That The Private Citizen Might Be Reasonable, And A Good Neighbor, Without The Hint Of A Jail Or A Confiscation.

I Must Be Myself. I Cannot Break Myself Any Longer For You, Or You. If You Can Love Me For What I Am, We Shall Be The Happier. If You Cannot, I Will Still Seek To Seserve That You Should.

If You Would Rule The World Quietly, You Must Keep It Amused.

The Astonishment Of Life Is The Absence Of Any Appearances Of Reconciliation Between The Theory And The Practice Of Life.

I Believe That Our Own Experience Instructs Us That The Secret Of Education Lies In Respecting The Pupil. It Is Not For You To Choose What He Shall Know, What He Shall Do. It Is Chosen And Foreordained, And He Only Holds The Key To His Own Secret. By Your Tampering And Thwarting And Too Much Governing He May Be Hindered From His End And Kept Out Of His Own. Respect The Child. Wait And See The New Product Of Nature. Nature Loves Analogies, But Not Repetitions. Respect The Child. Be Not Too Much His Parent. Trespass Not On His Solitude.

Then Climate Is A Great Impediment To Idle Persons; We Often Resolve To Give Up The Care Of The Weather, But Still We Regard The Clouds And The Rain.

How Beautiful To Have The Church Always Open, So That Every Tired Wayfaring Man May Come In And Be Soothed By All That Art Can Suggest Of A Better World When He Is Weary With This.

What A Man Does, That He Has. What Has He To Do With Hope Or Fear? In Himself Is His Might. Let Him Regard No Good As Solid But That Which Is In His Nature, And Which Must Grow Out Of Him As Long As He Exists. The Goods Of Fortune May Come And Go Like Summer Leaves; Let Him Scatter Them On Every Wind As The Momentary Signs Of His Infinite Productiveness.

Man Is A Piece Of The Universe Made Alive

Being Perfectly Well-dressed Gives A Feeling Of Tranquillity That Religion Is Powerless To Bestow.

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