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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The City Is Always

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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I Have Been Told, That In Some Public Discourses Of Mine My Reverence For The Intellect Has Made Me Unjustly Cold To The Personalrelations. But Now I Almost Shrink At The Remembrance Of Such Disparaging Words. For Persons Are Love's World, And The Coldest Philosopher Cannot Recount The Debt Of The Young Soul Wandering Here In Nature To The Power Of Love, Without Being Tempted To Unsay, As Treasonable To Nature, Aught Derogatory To The Social Instincts.

The Flowering Of Civilization Is The Finished Man, The Man Of Sense, Of Grace, Of Accomplishment, Of Social Power--the Gentleman.

Science Corrects The Old Creeds, Sweeps Away, With Every New Perception, Our Infantile Catechisms, And Necessitates A Faith Commensurate With The Grander Orbits And Universal Laws Which It Discloses Yet It Does Not Surprise The Moral Sentiment That Was Older And Awaited Expectant These Larger Insights.

For Everything You Gain, You Lose Something.

Missing Someone

The Highest End Of Government Is The Culture Of Men.

Every Natural Power Exhilarates; A True Talent Delights The Possessor First.

There Is A Third Silent Party To All Our Bargains. The Nature And Soul Of Things Takes On Itself The Guaranty Of The Fulfillment Of Every Contract, So That Honest Service Cannot Come To Loss. If You Serve An Ungrateful Master, Serve Him The More. Put God In Your Debt. Every Stroke Shall Be Repaid. The Longer The Payment Is Withholden, The Better For You; For Compound Interest On Compound Interest Is The Rate And Usage Of This Exchequer.

The Arts And Inventions Of Each Period Are Only Its Costume, And Do Not Invigorate Men.

As Soon As The Man Is At One With God, He Will Not Beg. He Will Then See Prayer In All Action.

Proverbs, Words, And Grammar Inflections Convey The Public Sense With More Purity And Precision, Than The Wisest Individual.

Well, The World Has A Million Writers. One Would Think, Then, That Good Thought Would Be As Familiar As Air And Water, And The Gifts Of Each New Hour Would Exclude The Last. Yet We Can Count All Our Good Books; Nay, I Remember Any Beautiful Verse For Twenty Years.

It Is The Eye Which Makes The Horizon.

Every Man Beholds His Human Condition With A Degree Of Melancholy. As A Ship Aground Is Battered By The Waves, So Man, Imprisonedin Mortal Life, Lies Open To The Mercy Of Coming Events.

The Richest Of All Lords Is Use, And Ruddy Health The Loftiest Muse. Live In The Sunshine, Swim The Sea, Drink The Wild Air's Salubrity.

The Stupidity Of Men Always Invites The Insolence Of Power.

Free Should Be The Scholar - Free And Brave.

No Man Can Help Another Without Helping Himself.

A Mob Cannot Be A Permanency: Everybody's Interest Requires That It Should Not Exist, And Only Justice Satisfies All.

Power Is What They Want, Not Candy-power To Execute Their Design, Power To Give Legs And Feet, Form And Actuality To Their Thought; Which, To A Clear-sighted Man, Appears The End For Which The Universe Exists, And All Its Resources Might Be Well Applied.

But Speak The Truth, And All Nature And All Spirits Help You With Unexpected Furtherance. Speak The Truth, And All Things Alive Orbrute Are Vouchers, And The Very Roots Of The Grass Underground There Do Seem To Stir And Move To Bear You Witness.

Dare To Live The Life You Have Dreamed For Yourself. Go Forward And Make Your Dreams Come True.

Cannot We Let [children] Be Themselves, And Enjoy Life In Their Own Way? You Are Trying To Make Another You. One's Enough.

Sooner Or Later That Which Is Now Life Shall Be Poetry, And Every Fair And Manly Trait Shall Add A Richer Strain To The Song.

Accept The Place The Divine Providence Has Found For You, The Society Of Your Contemporaries, The Connection Of Events.

So All That Is Said Of The Wise Man By Stoic Or Oriental Or Modern Essayist, Describes To Each Reader His Own Idea, Describes His Unattained But Attainable Self.

Shakespeare Possesses The Power Of Subordinating Nature For The Purposes Of Expression, Beyond All Poets. His Imperial Muse Tosses The Creation Like A Bauble From Hand To Hand, And Uses It To Embody Any Caprice Of Thought That Is Uppermost In His Mind. The Remotest Spaces Of Nature Are Visited, And The Farthest Sundered Things Are Brought Together, By Subtle Spiritual Connection. We Are Made Aware That Magnitude Of Material Things Is Relative, And All Objects Shrink And Expand To Serve The Passion Of The Poet.

We Denote This Primary Wisdom As Intuition, Whilst All Later Teachings Are Tuitions.

Thus Grows Up Fashion, An Equivocal Semblance, The Most Puissant, The Most Fantastic And Frivolous, The Most Feared And Followed, And Which Morals And Violence Assault In Vain.

'tis A Short Sight To Limit Our Faith In Laws To Those Of Gravity, Of Chemistry, Of Botany, And So Forth. Those Laws Do Not Stop Where Our Eyes Lose Them, But Push The Same Geometry And Chemistry Up Into The Invisible Plane Of Social And Rational Life, So That, Look Where We Will, In A Boy's Game, Or In The Strifes Of Races, A Perfect Reaction, A Perpetual Judgment Keeps Watch And Ward.

Wherever A Man Comes, There Comes Revolution. The Old Is For Slaves.

No Member Of A Crew Is Praised For The Rugged Individuality Of His Rowing.

Higher Than The Question Of Our Duration Is The Question Of Our Deserving. Immortality Will Come To Such As Are Fit For It, And He Would Be A Great Soul In Future Must Be A Great Soul Now.

The World Looks Like A Multiplication-table, Or A Mathematical Equation, Which, Turn It How You Will, Balances Itself.

Mathematical Equations

We Must Be Our Own Before We Can Be Another's.

Build Therefore Your Own World.

Only An Inventor Knows How To Borrow, And Every Man Is Or Should Be An Inventor.

God Made Yeast, As Well As Dough, And Loves Fermentation Just As Dearly As He Loves Vegetation.

The Right Eloquence Needs No Bell To Call The People Together, And No Constable To Keep Them.

Art Is The Path Of The Creator To His Work.

The Path Of Things Is Silent. Will They Suffer A Speaker To Go With Them?

It Is Easy In The World To Live After The World's Opinion; It Is Easy In Solitude To Live After Our Own; But The Great Man Is He Who In The Midst Of The Crowd Keeps With Perfect Sweetness The Independence Of Solitude.

He Who Has A Thousand Friends Has Not A Friend To Spare, While He Who Has One Enemy Shall Meet Him Everywhere.

The Good Spirit Never Cared For The Colleges, And Though All Men And Boys Were Now Drilled In Greek, Latin, And Mathematics, It Had Quite Left These Shells High On The Beach, And Was Creating And Feeding Other Matters [science] At Other Ends Of The World.

We Are Not Free To Use Today, Or To Promise Tomorrow, Because We Are Already Mortgaged To Yesterday.

The Soul Knows No Persons.

Sorrow Makes Us All Children Again.

Sometimes A Scream Is Better Than A Thesis.

The Borrower Runs In His Own Debt.

The Poet Needs A Ground In Popular Tradition On Which He May Work, And Which, Again, May Restrain His Art Within The Due Temperance. It Holds Him To The People, Supplies A Foundation For His Edifice; And, In Furnishing So Much Work Done To His Hand, Leaves Him At Leisure, And In Full Strength For The Audacities Of His Imagination.

The Universe Does Not Jest With Us, But Is In Earnest.

We Early Arrive At The Great Discovery That There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men: That What Is Individual Is Less Than What Is Universalthat Error, Vice And Disease Have Their Seat In The Superficial Or Individual Nature.

The People Are To Be Taken In Very Small Doses.

Public Speaking

We Resent All Criticism Which Denies Us Anything That Lies In Our Line Of Advance.

Tis The Old Secret Of The Gods That They Come In Low Disguises. 'tis The Vulgar Great Who Come Dizened With Gold And Jewels. Real Kings Hide Away Their Crowns In Their Wardrobes, And Affect A Plain And Poor Exterior.

How Much More The Seeker Of Abstract Truth, Who Needs Periods Of Isolation, And Rapt Concentration, And Almost A Going Out Of Thebody To Think!

Steam Was Till The Other Day The Devil Which We Dreaded. Every Pot Made By Any Human Potter Or Brazier Had A Hole In Its Cover, To Let Off The Enemy, Lest He Should Lift Pot And Roof And Carry The House Away.

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

Good Writing Is A Kind Of Skating Which Carries Off The Performer Where He Would Not Go, And Is Only Right Admirable When To All Its Beauty And Speed A Subserviency To The Will, Like That Of Walking, Is Added.

The First In Time And The First In Importance Of The Influences Upon The Mind Is That Of Nature. Every Day, The Sun; And After Sunset, Night And Her Stars. Ever The Winds Blow; Ever The Grass Grows.

Profound Sincerity Is The Only Basis Of Talent As Of Character.

If We Walk In The Woods, We Must Feed Mosquitoes.

I Do Not See How A Barbarous Community And A Civilized Community Can Constitute A State. I Think We Must Get Rid Of Slavery Or We Must Get Rid Of Freedom.

The Field Cannot Be Seen From Within The Field.

You Have A Place To Live In This World Which No Other Man Can Occupy; Hence No Competitors.

The Religions We Call False Were Once True.

The Soul Contains The Event That Shall Befall It, For The Event Is Only The Actualization Of Its Thoughts; And What We Pray To Ourselves For Is Always Granted.

Government Exists To Defend The Weak And The Poor And The Injured Party; The Rich And The Strong Can Better Take Care Of Themselves.

We Can See Well Into The Past; We Can Guess Shrewdly Into The Future, But That Which Is Rolled Up And Muffled In Impenetrable Folds Is Today.

Without Ambition One Starts Nothing. Without Work One Finishes Nothing. The Prize Will Not Be Sent To You. You Have To Win It. The Man Who Knows How Will Always Have A Job. The Man Who Also Knows Why Will Always Be His Boss. As To Methods There May Be A Million And Then Some, But Principles Are Few. The Man Who Grasps Principles Can Successfully Select His Own Methods. The Man Who Tries Methods, Ignoring Principles, Is Sure To Have Trouble.

Poverty, Frost, Famine, Rain, Disease, Are The Beadles And Guardsmen That Hold Us To Common Sense.

What Is The Hardest Task In The World? To Think.

The Age Of Puberty Is A Crisis In The Age Of Man Worth Studying. It Is The Passage From The Unconscious To The Conscious; From Thesleep Of Passions To Their Rage.

Could Shakespeare Give A Theory Of Shakespeare?

When The Night Is Darkest, The Stars Come Out.

There Is A Principle Which Is The Basis Of Things, Which All Speech Aims To Say, And All Action To Evolve, A Simple, Quiet, Undescribed, Undescribable Presence, Dwelling Very Peacefully In Us, Our Rightful Lord: We Are Not To Do, But To Let Do; Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon.

To Eat Bread Is One Thing; To Love The Precepts Of Christ And Resolve To Obey Them Is Quite Another.

Science Always Goes Abreast With The Just Elevation Of The Man, Keeping Step With Religion And Metaphysics; Or, The State Of Science Is An Index Of Our Self-knowledge.

Our Admiration Of The Antique Is Not Admiration Of The Old, But Of The Natural.

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

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 Wish That Friendship Should Have Feet, As Well As Eyes And Eloquence. It Must Plant Itself On The Ground, Before It Vaults Overthe Moon. I Wish It To Be A Little Of A Citizen, Before It Is Quite A Cherub.

The Language Of The Street Is Always Strong.

He Then Learns That In Going Down Into The Secrets Of His Own Mind, He Has Descended Into The Secrets Of All Minds.

Things Are In The Saddle. And Ride Mankind.

Transcendentalism

Earth Laughs In Flowers.

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."

It Is About Your Outlook Towards Life. You Can Either Regret Or Rejoice.

Children Are All Foreigners.

Where The Heart Is, There The Muses, There The Gods Sojourn, And Not In Any Geography Of Fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, And Boston Bay, You Think Paltry Places, And The Ear Loves Names Of Foreign And Classic Topography. But Here We Are; And, If We Tarry A Little, We May Come To Learn That Here Is Best. See To It, Only, That Thyself Is Here;--and Art And Nature, Hope And Fate, Friends, Angels, And The Supreme Being, Shall Not Absent From The Chamber Where Thou Sittest.

Cowardice Shuts The Eyes Till The Sky Is Not Larger Than A Calf-skin: Shuts The Eyes So That We Cannot See The Horse That Is Running Away With Us; Worse, Shuts The Eyes Of The Mind And Chills The Heart.

In This Our Talking America, We Are Ruined By Our Good Nature And Listening On All Sides. This Compliance Takes Away The Power Ofbeing Greatly Useful.

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.'

Is Not Marriage An Open Question, When It Is Alleged, From The Beginning Of The World, That Such As Are In The Institution Wish To Get Out, And Such As Are Out Wish To Get In?

The Difference Between The Actual And The Ideal Force Of Man Is Happily Figured In By The Schoolmen, In Saying, That The Knowledgeof Man Is An Evening Knowledge, Vespertina Cognitio, But That Of God Is A Morning Knowledge, Matutina Cognitio.

Insist Upon Yourself. Be Original.

Funny Basketball

If We Encounter A Man Of Rare Intellect, We Should Ask Him What Books He Reads.

There Will Always Be In Society Certain Persons Who Are Mercuries Of Its Approbation, And Whose Glance Will At Any Time Determinefor The Curious Their Standing In The World. These Are The Chamberlains Of The Lesser Gods. Accept Their Coldness As An Omen Of Grace With The Loftier Deities, And Allow Them All Their Privilege.

Every Opinion Reacts On Him Who Utters It.

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

There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right.

When Private Men Shall Act With Original Views, The Lustre Will Be Transferred From The Actions Of Kings To Those Of Gentlemen.

Let Us Even Bid Our Dearest Friends Farewell, And Defy Them, Saying, "who Are You? Unhand Me: I Will Be Dependent No More." Ah! Seest Thou Not, O Brother, That Thus We Part Only To Meet Again On A Higher Platform, And Only Be More Each Other's, Because We Are More Our Own?

So Use All That Is Called Fortune. Most Men Gamble With Her, And Gain All, And Lose All, As Her Wheel Rolls. But Do Thou Leave As Unlawful These Winnings, And Deal With Cause And Effect, The Chancellors Of God.

Heaven Is Large, And Affords Space For All Modes Of Love And Fortitude.

If You Love And Serve Man, You Cannot, By Any Hiding Or Stratagem, Escape Remuneration.

The World Always Had The Same Bankrupt Look, To Foregoing Ages As To Us.

Pride Eradicates All Vices But Itself.

The Narrow Sectarian Cannot Read Astronomy With Impunity. The Creeds Of His Church Shrivel Like Dried Leaves At The Door Of The Observatory.

For The World Is Not Painted, Or Adorned, But Is From The Beginning Beautiful; And God Has Not Made Some Beautiful Things, But Beauty Is The Creator Of The Universe.

Knowledge, Virtue, Power Are The Victories Of Man Over His Necessities, His March To The Dominion Of The World.

Every Burned Book Enlightens The World.

Age, Like Woman, Requires Fit Surroundings.

Culture Is The Suggestion, From Certain Best Thoughts, That A Man Has A Range Of Affinities Through Which He Can Modulate The Violence Of Any Master-tones That Have A Droning Preponderance In His Scale, And Succor Him Against Himself. Culture Redresses This Imbalance, Puts Him Among Equals And Superiors, Revives The Delicious Sense Of Sympathy, And Warns Him Of The Dangers Of Solitude And Repulsion.

Great Works Of Art Have No More Affecting Lesson For Us Than This. They Teach Us To Abide By Our Own Spontaneous Expression With Good Humored Inflexibility Whether The Whole Cry Of Voices Is On The Other Side.

Do Not Require A Description Of The Countries Towards Which You Sail. The Description Does Not Describe Them To You, And To- Morrow You Arrive There, And Know Them By Inhabiting Them.

I Have Heard With Admiring Submission The Experience Of The Lady Who Declared That The Sense Of Being Well Dressed Gives A Feeling Of Inward Tranquility Which Religion Is Powerless To Bestow.

There Is No Good Theory Of Disease Which Does Not At Once Suggest A Cure.

We Must Be Courteous To A Man As We Are To A Picture, Which We Are Willing To Give The Advantage Of A Good Light.

Give Me Insight Into Today And You May Have The Antique And Future Worlds.

Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm.

Whenever A True Theory Appears, It Will Be Its Own Evidence. Its Test Is, That It Will Explain All Phenomena.

Practice Makes Perfect - The Sooner You Start, The Sooner You Will Be A Happy Nonsmoker

I Think It Is The Best Of Humanity That Goes Out To Walk. In Happy Hours, I Think All Affairs May Be Wisely Postponed For Walking.

I Pack My Trunk, Embrace My Friends, Embark On The Sea And At Last Wake Up In Naples, And There Beside Me Is The Stern Fact, The Sad Self, Unrelenting, Identical, That I Fled From.

Earth Proudly Wears The Parthenon As The Best Gem Upon Her Zone.

All Inquiry Into Antiquity, All Curiosity Respecting The Pyramids, The Excavated Cities, Stonehenge, The Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis,--is The Desire To Do Away This Wild, Savage, And Preposterous There And Then, And Introduce In Its Place The Here And Now.

Personal Beauty Is Then First Charming And Itself, When It Dissatisfies Us With Any End; When It Becomes A Story Without An End; When It Suggests Gleams And Visions, And Not Earthly Satisfactions; When It Makes The Beholder Feel His Unworthiness; When He Cannot Feel His Right To It, Though He Were Caesar; He Cannot Feel More Right To It Than To The Firmament And The Splendors Of A Sunset.

Nothing Is Arbitrary, Nothing Is Insulated In Beauty. It Depends Forever On The Necessary And The Useful. The Plumage Of The Bird, The Mimic Plumage Of The Insect, Has A Reason For Its Rich Colors In The Constitution Of The Animal. Fitness Is So Inseparable An Accompaniment Of Beauty, That It, Has Been Taken For It.

Every Revolution Was First A Thought In One Man's Mind; And When The Same Thought Occurs To Another Man, It Is The Key To That Era.

Ability Without Honor Has No Value.

A Just Thinker Will Allow Full Swing To His Scepticism. I Dip My Pen In The Blackest Ink, Because I Am Not Afraid Of Falling Into My Inkpot.... We Are Of Different Opinions At Different Hours, But We Always May Be Said To Be At Heart On The Side Of Truth.

There Is No Prosperity, Trade, Art, City, Or Great Material Wealth Of Any Kind, But If You Trace It Home, You Will Find It Rooted In A Thought Of Some Individual Man.

Europe Has Always Owed To Oriental Genius Its Divine Impulses. What These Holy Bards Said, All Sane Men Found Agreeable And True.

Bad Times Have A Scientific Value. These Are Occasions A Good Learner Would Not Miss.

Nature Cannot Be Surprised In Undress. Beauty Breaks In Everywhere.

None Of Us Will Ever Accomplish Anything Excellent Or Commanding Except When He Listens To This Whisper Which Is Heard By Him Alone.

The Machine Unmakes The Man. Now That The Machine Is So Perfect, The Engineer Is Nobody.

When I Read A Good Book, I Wish My Life Were Three Thousand Years Long.

The Poem Is A Confession Of Faith.

You Can Take Better Care Of Your Secret Than Another Can.

I Now Require This Of All Pictures, That They Domesticate Me, Not That They Dazzle Me. Pictures Must Not Be Too Picturesque. Nothing Astonishes Men So Much As Common-sense And Plain Dealing. All Great Actions Have Been Simple, And All Great Pictures Are.

Every Man Is A Quotation From All His Ancestors.

Your Work Should Be In Praise Of What You Love.

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.

I Have Sometimes Thought That, In Order To Be A Good Minister, It Was Necessary To Leave The Ministry. The Profession Is Antiquated. In An Altered Age, We Worship In The Dead Forms Of Our Forefathers.

Behind Every Individual Closes Organization; Before Him Opens Liberty,--the Better, The Best. The First And Worse Races Are Dead.the Second And Imperfect Races Are Dying Out, Or Remain For The Maturing Of The Higher. In The Latest Race, In Man, Every Generosity, Every New Perception, The Love And Praise He Extorts From His Fellows, Are Certificates Of Advance Out Of Fate Into Freedom.

But We Need Not Fear That We Can Lose Any Thing By The Progress Of The Soul. The Soul May Be Trusted To The End.

A Home Kept To The End Of Display Is Impossible To All But A Few Women, And Their Success Is Dearly Bought.

A Man Should Not Be A Silkworm; Nor A Nation A Tent Of Caterpillars.

These Are The Voices Which We Hear In Solitude, But They Grow Faint And Inaudible As We Enter Into The World. Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Everyone Of Its Members. Society Is A Joint-stock Company, In Which The Members Agree, For The Better Securing Of His Bread To Each Shareholder, To Surrender The Liberty And Culture Of The Eater. The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity. Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

Every Man Is Actually Weak, And Apparently Strong. To Himself, He Seems Weak; To Others, Formidable.

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.

We Never Touch But At Points.

The Great Majority Of Men Are Bundles Of Beginnings

The Line Of Beauty Is The Line Of Perfect Economy.

One More Royal Trait Properly Belongs To The Poet. I Mean His Cheerfulness, Without Which No Man Can Be A Poet,--for Beauty Is His Aim. He Loves Virtue, Not For Its Obligation, But For Its Grace; He Delights In The World, In Man, In Woman, For The Lovely Light That Sparkles From Them. Beauty, The Spirit Of Joy And Hilarity, He Sheds Over The Universe.

In The Great Books Of India, An Empire Spoke To Us, Nothing Small Or Unworthy, But Large, Serene, Consistent, The Voice Of An Old Intelligence, Which In Another Age And Climate Had Pondered And Thus Disposed Of The Questions That Exercise Us.

Its The Not The Destination, It's The Journey.

The Merit Claimed For The Anglican Church Is That, If You Let It Alone, It Will Let You Alone.

The Exercise Of All The Senses Is As Intense Pleasure, As Anyone Will Find, Who Recovers The Use Of One After Being Deprived Of It.

Give The Slave The Least Elevation Of Religious Sentiment, And He Is Not Slave: You Are The Slave: He Not Only In His Humility Feels His Superiority, Feels That Much Deplored Condition Of His To Be A Fading Trifle, But He Makes You Feel It Too. He Is The Master.

Every Roof Is Agreeable To The Eye, Until It Is Lifted; Then We Find Tragedy And Moaning Women, And Hard-eyed Husbands.

Persecution Readily Knits Friendship Between Its Victims.

Life Is March Weather, Savage And Serene In One Hour.

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.

People Wish To Be Settled; Only As Far As They Are Unsettled Is There Any Hope For Them.

Men Talk As If Victory Were Something Fortunate. Work Is Victory.

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.

If Your Friend Has Displeased You, You Shall Not Sit Down To Consider It, For He Has Already Lost All Memory Of The Passage, And Has Doubled His Power To Serve You, And, Ere You Can Rise Up Again, Will Burden You With Blessings.

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.

Tis The Good Reader That Makes The Good Book.

Behind Us, As We Go, All Things Assume Pleasing Forms, As Clouds Do Far Off. Not Only Things Familiar And Stale, But Even The Tragic And Terrible, Are Comely, As They Take Their Place In The Pictures Of Memory.

New York Is A Sucked Orange. All Conversation Is At An End, When We Have Discharged Ourselves Of A Dozen Personalities, Domestic Or Imported, Which Make Up Our American Existence.

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.

I Am Grown By Sympathy A Little Eager And Sentimental, But Leave Me Alone, And I Should Relish Every Hour And What It Brought Me, The Pot-luck Of The Day, As Heartily As The Oldest Gossip In The Bar-room.

The Creation Of A Thousand Forests Is In One Acorn.

God Builds His Temple In The Heart On The Ruins Of Churches And Religions.

If The Individuals Who Compose The Purest Circles Of Aristocracy In Europe, The Guarded Blood Of Centuries, Should Pass In Review,in Such Manner As That We Could, At Leisure, And Critically Inspect Their Behavior, We Might Find No Gentleman, And No Lady; For, Although Excellent Specimens Of Courtesy And High-breeding Would Gratify Us In The Assemblage, In The Particulars, We Should Detect Offence. Because, Elegance Comes Of No Breeding, But Of Birth.

We Are Symbols, And Inhabit Symbols.

Let A Stoic Open The Resources Of Man, And Tell Men They Are Not Leaning Willows, But Can And Must Detach Themselves; That With The Exercise Of Self-trust, New Powers Shall Appear.

We Lie In The Lap Of Immense Intelligence.

Condense Some Daily Experience Into A Glowing Symbol And An Audience Is Electrified.

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 Library We Are Surrounded By Many Hundreds Of Dear Friends, But They Are Imprisoned By An Enchanter In These Paper And Leathern Boxes.

Every Fact Is Related On One Side To Sensation, And, On The Other, To Morals. The Game Of Thought Is, On The Appearance Of One Of These Two Sides, To Find The Other: Given The Upper, To Find The Under Side.

What The Tender And Poetic Youth Dreams To-day, And Conjures Up With Inarticulate Speech, Is To-morrow The Vociferated Result Of Public Opinion, And The Day After Is The Character Of Nations.

The Sky Is The Daily Bread Of The Eyes.

Hidden Away In The Inner Nature Of The Real Man Is The Law Of His Life, And Someday He Will Discover It And Consciously Make Use Of It. He Will Heal Himself, Make Himself Happy And Prosperous, And Life In An Entirely Different World. For He Will Have Discovered That Life Is From Within And Not From Without.

A Man Finds Room In The Few Square Inches Of The Face For The Traits Of All His Ancestors; For The Expression Of All His History, And His Wants.

The Orator Is Thereby An Orator That Keeps His Feet Ever On A Fact.

We Thirst For Approbation, Yet Cannot Forgive The Approver.

No Man Has A Right Perception Of Any Truth, Who Has Not Been Reacted On By It, So As To Be Ready To Be Its Martyr.

Virtue Runs Before The Muse, And Defies Her Skill; She Is Rapt And Doth Refuse To Wait A Painter's Will.

In My Utter Impotence To Test The Authenticity Of The Report Of My Senses, To Know Whether The Impressions They Make On Me Correspond With Outlying Objects, What Difference Does It Make, Whether Orion Is Up There In Heaven, Or Some God Paints The Image In The Firmament Of The Soul?

Fear Is Cruel And Mean.

As The Gardener, By Severe Pruning, Forces The Sap Of The Tree Into One Or Two Vigorous Limbs, So Should You Stop Off Your Miscellaneous Activity And Concentrate Your Force On One Or A Few Points.

The Most Active Lives Have So Much Routine As To Preclude Progress Almost Equally With The Most Inactive.

Every Stoic Was A Stoic; But In Christendom Where Is The Christian?

One More Fagot Of These Adamantine Bandages Is The New Science Of Statistics.

The Crowning Fortune Of A Man Is To Be Born To Some Pursuit Which Finds Him Employment And Happiness, Whether It Be To Make Baskets, Or Broadswords, Or Canals, Or Statues, Or Songs.

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