Background Image

...

The Human Body Is A Magazine Of Inventions, The Patent Office, Where Are The Models From Which Every Hint Is Taken. All The Tools And Engines On Earth Are Only Extensions Of Its Limbs And Senses.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Human Body Is

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

The Human Body Is A Magazine Of Inventions, The Patent Office, Where Are The Models From Which Every Hint Is Taken. All The Tools And Engines On Earth Are Only Extensions Of Its Limbs And Senses.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

I Think I Have Done Well, If I Have Acquired A New Word From A Good Author; And My Business With Him Is To Find My Own, Though Itwere Only To Melt Him Down Into An Epithet Or An Image For Daily Use.

Is It So Bad, Then, To Be Misunderstood? Pythagoras Was Misunderstood, And Socrates, And Jesus, And Luther, And Copernicus, And Galileo, And Newton, And Every Pure And Wise Spirit That Ever Took Flesh. To Be Great Is To Be Misunderstood.

The Advantage In Education Is Always With Those Children Who Slip Up Into Life Without Being Objects Of Notice.

Strong Men Greet War, Tempest, Hard Times. They Wish, As Pindar Said, To Tread The Floors Of Hell, With Necessities As Hard As Iron.

England, An Old And Exhausted Island, Must One Day Be Contented, Like Other Parents, To Be Strong Only In Her Children.

I Am Not Engaged To Christianity By Decent Forms, Or Saving Ordinances; It Is Not Usage, It Is Not What I Do Not Understand, That Binds Me To It -- Let These Be The Sandy Foundations Of Falsehoods. What I Revere And Obey In It Is Its Reality, Its Boundless Charity, Its Deep Interior Life, The Rest It Gives To My Mind, The Echo It Returns To My Thoughts, The Perfect Accord It Makes With My Reason Through All Its Representation Of God And His Providence; And The Persuasion And Courage That Come Out Thence To Lead Me Upward And Onward.

Therefore All Just Persons Are Satisfied With Their Own Praise. They Refuse To Explain Themselves, And Are Content That New Actions Should Do Them That Office. They Believe That We Communicate Without Speech, And Above Speech, And That No Right Action Of Ours Is Quite Unaffecting To Our Friends, At Whatever Distance; For The Influence Of Action Is Not To Be Measured By Miles.

I Have Heard That Whoever Loves Is In No Condition Old.

A Foolish Consistency Is The Hobgoblin Of Little Minds, Adored By Little Statesmen And Philosophers And Divines. With Consistency A Great Soul Has Simply Nothing To Do. He May As Well Concern Himself With His Shadow On The Wall. Speak What You Think Now In Hard Words And To-morrow Speak What To-morrow Thinks In Hard Words Again, Though It Contradict Every Thing You Said To-day.

The Things We Now Esteem Fixed Shall, One By One, Detach Themselves, Like Ripe Fruit, From Our Experience, And Fall. The Wind Shall Blow Them None Knows Whither.

Law Of Contrariness: Our Chief Want In Life Is Somebody Who Shall Make Us Do What We Can. Having Found Them, We Shall Then Hate Them For It.

There Is No Event Greater In Life Than The Appearance Of New Persons About Our Hearth, Except It Be The Progress Of The Characterwhich Draws Them.

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

The Most Attractive Class Of People Are Those Who Are Powerful Obliquely, And Not By The Direct Stroke: Men Of Genius, But Not Yetaccredited: One Gets The Cheer Of Their Light, Without Paying Too Great A Tax.

It Seems As If Nature, In Regarding The Geologic Night Behind Her, When, In Five Or Six Millenniums, She Had Turned Out Five Or Six Men, As Homer, Phidias, Menu, And Columbus, Was No Wise Discontented With The Result. These Samples Attested The Virtue Of The Tree.

Life Is A Festival Only To The Wise.

If The Tongue Had Not Been Framed For Articulation, Man Would Still Be A Beast In The Forest.

Morality Is The Object Of Government.

If The Red Slayer Think He Slays, Or If The Slain Think He Is Slain, They Know Not Well The Subtle Ways, I Keep And Pass And Turn Again.

Genius Is The Naturalist Or Geographer Of The Supersensible Regions, And Draws Their Map; And, By Acquainting Us With New Fields Of Activity, Cools Our Affection For The Old. These Are At Once Accepted As The Reality, Of Which The World We Have Conversed With Is The Show.

Solitude, The Safeguard Of Mediocrity, Is To Genius The Stern Friend

The Foundations Of A Person Are Not In Matter But In Spirit.

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken. (despite) All The Selfishness That Chills Like East Winds The World, The Whole Human Family Is Bathed With An Element Of Love Like A Fine Ether... The Effect Of The Indulgence Of This Human Affection Is A Certain Cordial Exhilaration.

The Glance Is Natural Magic. The Mysterious Communication Established Across A House Between Two Entire Strangers, Moves All The Springs Of Wonder.

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

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

The True Scholar Grudges Every Opportunity Of Action Passed, By, As A Loss Of Power.

Nothing Great Ever Happened Without Enthusiasm.

The Imitator Dooms Himself To Hopeless Mediocrity. The Inventor Did It Because It Was Natural To Him, And So In Him It Has A Charm. In The Imitator Something Else Is Natural, And He Bereaves Himself Of His Own Beauty, To Come Short Of Another Man's.

For, Rightly, Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth, And, Whilst I Fancied I Was Criticising Him, I Was Censuring Orrather Terminating My Own Soul.

The People Know That They Need In Their Representative Much More Than Talent, Namely, The Power To Make His Talent Trusted.

All Men Are Poets At Heart.

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

Providence Has A Wild, Rough, Incalculable Road To Its End, And It Is Of No Use To Try To Whitewash Its Huge, Mixed Instrumentalities, Or To Dress Up That Terrific Benefactor In A Clean Shirt And White Neckcloth Of A Student In Divinity.

The Soul Refuses Limits And Always Affirms An Optimism, Never A Pessimism.

If Men Would Avoid That General Language And General Manner In Which They Strive To Hide All That Is Peculiar, And Would Say Only What Was Uppermost In Their Own Minds, After Their Own Individual Manner, Every Man Would Be Interesting.

As Every Man Is Hunted By His Own Daemon, Vexed By His Own Disease, This Checks All His Activity.

Sometimes A Scream Is Better Than A Thesis.

A True Man Belongs To No Other Time Or Place, But Is The Center Of Things.

God Will Have Life To Be Real; We Will Be Damned, But It Shall Be Theatrical.

The Population Of The World Is A Conditional Population; These Are Not The Best, But The Best That Could Live In The Existing State Of Soils, Gases, Animals, And Morals: The Best That Could Yet Live; There Shall Be A Better, Please God.

To Be Rich Is To Have A Ticket Of Admission To The Masterworks And Chief Men Of Each Race. It Is To Have The Sea, By Voyaging; To Visit The Mountains, Niagara, The Nile, The Desert, Rome, Paris, Constantinople: To See Galleries, Libraries, Arsenals, Manufactories.

Everything In Nature Is Bipolar, Or Has A Positive And A Negative Pole.

I Dip My Pen In The Blackest Ink, Because I'm Not Afraid Of Falling Into My Inkpot.

We Are Ashamed Of Our Thoughts And Often See Them Brought Forth By Others.

Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty.

You Need Not Fear To Handle The Truth Roughly. She Is No Invalid.

All The Great Ages Have Been Ages Of Belief.

War Educates The Senses, Calls Into Action The Will, Perfects The Physical Constitution, Brings Men Into Such Swift And Close Collision In Critical Moments That Man Measures Man.

Saving Private Ryan

The Ornament Of A House Is The Friends Who Frequent It.

Oh, Be My Friend, And Teach Me To Be Thine!

Each Man Has An Aptitude Born With Him. Do Your Work.

Life Is A Boundless Privilege, And When You Pay For Your Ticket, And Get Into The Car, You Have No Guess What Good Company You Shall Find There.

I Think The Vice Of Our Housekeeping Is That It Does Not Hold Man Sacred. The Vice Of Government, The Vice Of Education, The Viceof Religion, Is One With That Of The Private Life.

Life Wastes Itself Whilst We Are Preparing To Live.

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

No Matter What Your Work, Let It Be Your Own. No Matter What Your Occupation, Let What You Are Doing Be Organic. Let It Be In Your Bones. In This Way, You Will Open The Door By Which The Affluence Of Heaven And Earth Shall Stream Into You.

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year. He Is Rich Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded With Fret And Anxiety. Finish Every Day And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could. Some Blunders And Absurdities, No Doubt Crept In. Forget Them As Soon As You Can, Tomorrow Is A New Day; Begin It Well And Serenely, With Too High A Spirit To Be Cumbered With Your Old Nonsense. This New Day Is Too Dear, With Its Hopes And Invitations, To Waste A Moment On The Yesterdays.

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!

You've Got To Be Taught To Be Afraid Of People Whose Eyes Are Oddly Made And People Whose Skin Is A Different Shade.

If The Race Is Good, So Is The Place.

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

People Say Law But They Mean Wealth.

There Will Be An Agreement In Whatever Variety Of Actions, So They Be Each Honest And Natural In Their Hour. For Of One Will, The Actions Will Be Harmonious, However Unlike They Seem. These Varieties Are Lost Sight Of At A Little Distance, At A Little Height Of Thought. One Tendency Unites Them All. The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficient Distance, And It Straightens Itself To The Average Tendency.

The Transcendentalist Adopts The Whole Connection Of Spiritual Doctrine. He Believes In Miracle, In The Perpetual Openness Of Thehuman Mind To New Influx Of Light And Power; He Believes In Inspiration, And In Ecstacy.

Wise Men Are Not Wise At All Hours, And Will Speak Five Times From Their Taste Or Their Humor, To Once From Their Reason.

What We Do Not Call Education Is More Precious Than That Which We Call So. We Form No Guess, At The Time Of Receiving A Thought, Of Its Comparative Value. And Education Often Wastes Its Effort In Attempts To Thwart And Balk This Natural Magnetism, Which Is Sure To Select What Belongs To It.

Put The Argument Into A Concrete Shape, Into An Image, Some Hard Phrase, Round And Solid As A Ball, Which They Can See And Handle And Carry Home With Them, And The Cause Is Half Won.

Aristotle And Plato Are Reckoned The Respective Heads Of Two Schools. A Wise Man Will See That Aristotle Platonizes.

You've Got To Be Taught, To Hate And Fear, You've Got To Be Taught, From Year To Year, It's Got To Be Drummed In Your Dear Little Ear, You've Got To Be Carefully Taught.

There Is One Topic Peremptorily Forbidden To All Well-bred, To All Rational Mortals, Namely, Their Distempers.

When A Man Lives With God, His Voice Shall Be As Sweet As The Murmur Of The Brook And Rustle Of The Corn.

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.

The World Is All Outside, It Has No Inside.

But To Most Of Us Society Shows Not Its Face And Eye, But Its Side And Back. To Stand In True Relations With Men In A False Age Isworth A Fit Of Insanity, Is It Not?

Every Man Is An Impossibility Until He Is Born.

Truly Speaking, It Is Not Instruction, But Provocation, That I Can Receive From Another Soul. What He Announces, I Must Find True In Me, Or Reject; And On His Word, Or As His Second, Be He Who He May, I Can Accept Nothing.

God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards. Always, Always, Always, Always, Always Do What You Are Afraid To Do. Do The Thing You Fear And The Death Of Fear Is Certain.

There Is A Certain Satisfaction In Coming Down To The Lowest Ground Of Politics, For We Get Rid Of Cant And Hypocrisy.

But I Shall Hear Without Pain, That I Play The Courtier Very Ill, And Talk Of That Which I Do Not Well Understand.

We Pray To Be Conventional. But The Wary Heaven Takes Care You Shall Not Be, If There Is Anything Good In You. Dante Was Very Badcompany, And Was Never Invited To Dinner.

For What Are They All In Their High Conceit, When Man In The Bush With God May Meet?

To Different Minds, The Same World Is A Hell, And A Heaven.

It Is Curious That Christianity, Which Is Idealism, Is Sturdily Defended By The Brokers, And Steadily Attacked By The Idealists.

Men Who Know The Same Things Are Not Long The Best Company For Each Other.

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

You Think That Your Silence On Certain Topics, Perhaps In The Face Of Injustice, Or Unkindness, Or Mean-spiritedness, Causes Others To Reserve Judgement Of You. Far Otherwise; Your Silence Utters Very Loud: You Have No Oracle To Speak, No Wisdom To Offer, And Your Fellow Men Have Learned That You Cannot Help Them. Doth Not Wisdom Cry, And Understanding Put Forth Her Voice? We Would Be Well To Do Likewise.

Respect The Child. Be Not Too Much His Parent. Trespass Not On His Solitude.

The Heroic Soul Does Not Sell Its Justice And Its Nobleness. It Does Not Ask To Dine Nicely And To Sleep Warm. The Essence Of Greatness Is The Perception That Virtue Is Enough. Poverty Is Its Ornament. It Does Not Need Plenty, And Can Very Well Abide Its Loss.

Friendship, Like The Immortality Of The Soul, Is Too Good To Be Believed.

Freedom Is Not The Right To Live As We Please, But The Right To Find How We Ought To Live In Order To Fulfill Our Potential.

Trust Your Instinct To The End, Though You Can Render No Reason.

We Gain The Strength Of The Temptation We Resist.

We Pass For What We Are. Character Teaches Above Our Wills. Men Imagine That They Communicate Thier Virtue Or Vice By Overt Actions, And Do Not See That Virtue Or Vice Emit A Breath Ever Moment....one Tendency Unites Them All. The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zsig Zag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficent Distance And It Straightens Itslef To The Average Tendency.

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.

England Produces Under Favorable Conditions Of Ease And Culture The Finest Women In The World. And, As The Men Are Affectionate And True-hearted, The Women Inspire And Refine Them.

How Often We Must Remember The Art Of The Surgeon, Which, In Replacing The Broken Bone, Contents Itself With Releasing The Parts From False Position; They Fly Into Place By The Action Of The Muscles. On This Art Of Nature All Our Arts Rely.

Genius Is Its Own End.

The Bulk Of Mankind Believe In Two Gods. They Are Under One Dominion Here In The House, As Friend And Parent, In Social Circles, In Letters, In Art, In Love, In Religion; But In Mechanics, In Dealing With Steam And Climate, In Trade, In Politics, They Think They Come Under Another.

You Cannot Sincerely Try To Help Another Without Helping Yourself

Now Every One Must Do After His Kind, Be He Asp Or Angel, And These Must.

The Idea Of God Ends In A Paltry Methodist Meeting-house.

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

Be Lord Of A Day, Through Wisdom And Justice, And You Can Put Up Your History Books.

Stay At Home In Your Mind. Don't Recite Other People's Opinions.

Meek Young Men Grow Up In Colleges And Believe It Is Their Duty To Accept The Views Which Books Have Given, And Grow Up Slaves.

Our Eyes Are Holden That We Cannot See Things That Stare Us In The Face, Until The Hour Arrives When The Mind Is Ripened; Then We Behold Them, And The Time When We Saw Them Not Is Like A Dream.

The Ocean Is A Large Drop; A Drop Is A Small Ocean.

The Best Conversation Is Rare. Society Seems To Have Agreed To Treat Fictions As Realities, And Realities As Fictions; And The Simple Lover Of Truth, Especially If On Very High Grounds, As A Religious Or Intellectual Seeker, Finds Himself A Stranger And Alien.

Most People, Who Have Quit Smoking, Have Had At Least One Unsuccessful Try In The Past. It Is Not Important How Many Times You Try To Quit. The Only Important Thing Is, That Eventually You Stay Quit

Every Man Who Would Do Anything Well, Must Come To It From A Higher Ground.

The Most Dangerous Thing Is Illusion.

The Purpose Of Life Is Not To Be Happy. It Is To Be Useful, To Be Honorable, To Be Compassionate, To Have It Make Some Difference That You Have Lived And Lived Well.

They Have Seen But Half The Universe Who Never Have Been Shown The House Of Pain.

The Secret Of Success In Society Is A Certain Heartiness And Sympathy. A Man Who Is Not Happy In Company, Cannot Find Any Word In His Memory That Will Fit The Occasion; All His Information Is A Little Impertinent. A Man Who Is Happy There, Finds In Every Turn Of The Conversation Occasions For The Introduction Of What He Has To Say. The Favorites Of Society Are Able Men, And Of More Spirit Than Wit, Who Have No Uncomfortable Egotism, But Who Exactly Fill The Hour And The Company, Contended And Contenting.

I Hate This Shallow Americanism Which Hopes To Get Rich By Credit, To Get Knowledge By Raps On Midnight Tables, To Learn The Economy Of The Mind By Phrenology, Or Skill Without Study, Or Mastery Without Apprenticeship.

The Eloquence Of One Stimulates All The Rest, Some Up To The Speaking-point, And All Others To A Degree That Makes Them Good Receivers And Conductors, And They Avenge Themselves For Their Enforced Silence By Increased Loquacity On Their Return.

Conformity Is The Ape Of Harmony.

We Are Disgusted By Gossip; Yet It Is Of Importance To Keep The Angels In Their Proprieties.

The Great Majority Of Men Grow Up And Grow Old In Seeming And Following.

It Is The Fine Souls Who Serve Us, And Not What Is Called Fine Society. Fine Society Is Only A Self-protection Against The Vulgarities Of The Street And The Tavern.

None Believeth In The Soul Of Man, But Only In Some Man Or Person Old And Departed.

It Is The Eye Which Makes The Horizon.

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

If You Have Something To Say, You Will Be Given The Power To Say It.

Whom God Has Put Asunder, Why Should Man Put Together?

Out Of Love And Hatred, Out Of Earnings And Borrowings And Leadings And Losses; Out Of Sickness And Pain; Out Of Wooing And Worshipping; Out Of Traveling And Voting And Watching And Caring; Out Of Disgrace And Contempt, Comes Our Tuition In The Serene And Beautiful Laws.

Good Bye, Proud World! I'm Going Home; Thou Art Not My Friend, And I'm Not Thine

Before We Acquire Great Power We Must Acquire Wisdom To Use It Well.

God Never Jests With Us, And Will Not Compromise The End Of Nature, By Permitting Any Inconsequence In Its Procession.

After Thirty, A Man Wakes Up Sad Every Morning, Excepting Perhaps Five Or Six, Until The Day Of His Death.

A Man's Power To Connect His Thought With Its Proper Symbol, And So To Utter It, Depends On The Simplicity Of His Character, That Is, Upon His Love Of Truth, And His Desire To Communicate It Without Loss.

Not Gold But Only Men Can Makea People Great And Strong;men Who For Truth And Honors Sakestand Fast And Suffer Long. Brave Men Who Work While Others Sleep,who Dare While Others Flythey Build A Nations Pillars Deepand Lift Them To The Sky.

Wisdom Will Never Let Us Stand With Any Man On An Unfriendly Footing. We Refuse Sympathy And Intimacy With People, As If We Waited For Some Better Sympathy Or Intimacy To Come. But Whence And When: Tomorrow Will Be Like Today. Life Wastes Itself While We Are Preparing To Live.

Vanity Costs Money, Labor, Horses, Men, Women, Health And Peace, And Is Still Nothing At Last,--a Long Way Leading Nowhere.

Often A Certain Abdication Of Prudence And Foresight Is An Element Of Success.

Congratulations

If I Should Go Out Of Church Whenever I Hear A False Statement I Could Never Stay There Five Minutes. But Why Come Out? The Streetis As False As The Church, And When I Get To My House, Or To My Manners, Or To My Speech, I Have Not Got Away From The Lie.

Why Has My Motley Diary No Jokes? Because It Is A Soliloquy And Every Man Is Grave Alone.

Man Is The Dwarf Of Himself.

God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards

Common Sense Is Genius Dressed In Its Working Clothes.

Genius Seems To Consistent Merely In Trueness Of Sight.

The House Is A Castle Which The King Cannot Enter.

A Cheerful Intelligent Face Is The End Of Culture, And Success Enough. For It Indicates The Purpose Of Nature And Wisdom Attained.

He Is Great Who Confers The Most Benefits.

When It's Darkest, Men See The Stars.

Duty Grows Everywhere--like Children, Like Grass.

Some Men, At The Approach Of A Dispute, Neigh Like Horses.

The End Of The Human Race Will Be That It Will Eventually Die Of Civilization.

A Man In A Cave Or In A Camp, A Nomad, Will Die With No More Estate Than The Wolf Or The Horse Leaves.

Sorrow Makes Us All Children Again.

In England Every Man You Meet Is Some Man's Son; In America, He May Be Some Man's Father.

The Possibility Of Interpretation Lies In The Identity Of The Observer With The Observed. Each Material Thing Has Its Celestial Side; Has Its Translation, Through Humanity, Into The Spiritual And Necessary Sphere, Where It Plays A Part As Indestructible As Any Other.

In Our Mechanics' Fair, There Must Be Not Only Bridges, Ploughs, Carpenter's Planes, And Baking Troughs, But Also Some Few Finer Instruments,--rain-gauges, Thermometers, And Telescopes; And In Society, Besides Farmers, Sailors, And Weavers, There Must Be A Few Persons Of Purer Fire Kept Specially As Gauges And Meters Of Character; Persons Of A Fine, Detecting Instinct, Who Note The Smallest Accumulations Of Wit And Feeling In The Bystander.

Human Beings Cannot Endure The Geological Chaos They Encounter Under The Soil Of Their Own Gardens.

The Mass Of Men Worry Themselves Into Nameless Graves While Here And There A Great Unselfish Soul Forgets Himself Into Immortality.

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.

When Science Is Learned In Love, And Its Powers Are Wielded By Love, They Will Appear The Supplements And Continuations Of The Material Creation.

Everywhere I Am Hindered Of Meeting God In My Brother, Because He Has Shut His Own Temple Doors And Recites Fables Merely Of His Brother's, Or His Brother's Brother's God.

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

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.

Man Thinking Must Not Be Subdued By His Instruments. Books Are For The Scholar's Idle Times. When He Can Read God Directly, The Hour Is Too Precious To Be Wasted In Other Men's Transcripts Of Their Readings.

It Is The Doctrine Of The Popular Music-masters, That Whoever Can Speak Can Sing. So, Probably, Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life. Our Temperaments Differ In Capacity Of Heat, Or

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

Standing On The Bare Ground,--my Head Bathed By The Blithe Air And Uplifted Into Infinite Space,--all Mean Egotism Vanishes. I Become A Transparent Eyeball; I Am Nothing; I See All; The Currents Of The Universal Being Circulate Through Me; I Am Part Or Parcel Of God.

Though We Travel The World Over To Find The Beautiful, We Must Carry It With Us, Or We Find It Not. The Best Of Beauty Is A Finer Charm Than Skill In Surfaces, In Outlines, Or Rules Of Art Can Ever Teach, Namely, A Radiation From The Work Of Art Of Human Character, — A Wonderful Expression Through Stone, Or Canvas, Or Musical Sound, Of The Deepest And Simplest Attributes Of Our Nature, And Therefore Most Intelligible At Last To Those Souls Which Have These Attributes.

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

By Virtue Of This Science The Poet Is The Namer, Or Language-maker, Naming Things Sometimes After Their Appearance, Sometimes After Their Essence, And Giving To Every One Its Own Name And Not Another's, Thereby Rejoicing The Intellect, Which Delights In Detachment Or Boundary.

Every Man Supposes Himself Not To Be Fully Understood Or Appreciated.

Chiefly The Sea-shore Has Been The Point Of Departure To Knowledge, As To Commerce. The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most.

The Poor Are Only They Who Feel Poor.

Hast Thou Named All The Birds Without A Gun?

There Is No Man Of Nature's Worth In The Circle Of The Earth.

The First Lesson Of History Is That Evil Is Good.

A Mind Does Not Receive Truth As A Chest Receives Jewels That Are Put Into It, But As The Stomach Takes Up Food Into The System. It Is No Longer Food, But Flesh, And Is Assimilated. The Appetite And The Power Of Digestion Measure Our Right To Knowledge. He Has It Who Can Use It. As Soon As Our Accumulation Overruns Our Invention Or Power To Use, The Evils Of Intellectual Gluttony Begin,— Congestion Of The Brain, Apoplexy And Strangulation.

Art Is The Need To Create; But In Its Essence, Immense And Universal, It Is Impatient Of Working With Lame Or Tied Hands, And Of Making Cripples And Monsters, Such As All Pictures And Statues Are. Nothing Less Than The Creation Of Man And Nature Is Its End.

Our Opinions Of The World, Are Confessions Of Character.

The Most Tedious Of All Discourses Are On The Subject Of The Supreme Being.

Sympathy Is A Supporting Atmosphere, And In It We Unfold Easily And Well.

Nature Is A Rag Merchant, Who Works Up Every Shred And Ort And End Into New Creations.

The Eye Is The Best Of Artists.

The Inmost In Due Time Becomes The Outmost.

I Know Of No Such Unquestionable Badge And Ensign Of A Sovereign Mind As That Of Tenacity Of Purpose.

Many Might Go To Heaven With Half The Labor They Go To Hell.

The Power Of Love, As The Basis Of A State, Has Never Been Tried.

I Wish The Days To Be As Centuries, Loaded, Fragrant. Now We Reckon Them As Bank-days, By Some Debt Which Is To Be Paid Us, Or Which We Are To Pay, Or Some Pleasure We Are To Taste.

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

You Have First An Instinct, Then An Opinion, Then A Knowledge, As The Plant Has Root, Bud, And Fruit.

Nature And Books Belong To The Eyes That See Them. It Depends On The Mood Of The Man, Whether He Shall See The Sunset Or The Fine Poem. There Are Always Sunsets, And There Is Always Genius; But Only A Few Hours So Serene That We Can Relish Nature Or Criticism. The More Or Less Depends On Structure Or Temperament. Temperament Is The Iron Wire On Which The Beads Are Strung. Of What Use Is Fortune Or Talent To A Cold And Defective Store?

A Hero Is A Man Who Is Afraid To Run Away.

Health Is The First Muse, Comprising The Magical Benefits Of Air, Landscape, And Bodily Exercise On The Mind.

The Secret Of Success In Society Is A Certain Heartiness And Sympathy.

Secret To Success

The Gentleman Is A Man Of Truth, Lord Of His Own Actions, And Expressing That Lordship In His Behavior, Not In Any Manner Dependent And Servile Either On Persons, Or Opinions, Or Possessions.

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

We Sometimes Meet An Original Gentleman, Who, If Manners Had Not Existed, Would Have Invented Them.

I Unsettle All Things.

For, The Sense Of Being Which In Calm Hours Rises, We Know Not How, In The Soul, Is Not Diverse From Things, From Space, From Light, From Time, From Man, But One With Them, And Proceeds Obviously From The Same Source Whence Their Life And Being Also Proceed. We First Share The Life By Which Things Exist, And Afterwards See Them As Appearances In Nature, And Forget That We Have Shared Their Cause. Here Is The Fountain Of Action And Of Thought.

Society Has Really No Graver Interest Than The Well-being Of The Literary Class.

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

But Your Isolation Must Not Be Mechanical, But Spiritual, That Is, Must Be Elevation.

Trending Author

William Drummond

Category