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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Idiot, The Indian,

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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Our Expenses Are All For Conformity.

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

You Need Someone Who Can Inspire You To Be What You Know You Can Be

How Much Of Human Life Is Lost In Waiting.

The Meaning Of Good And Bad, Of Better And Worse, Is Simply Helping Or Hurting.

Nature Abhors The Old.

Nothing Is Beneath You If It Is In The Direction Of Your Life.

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

Sleep Takes Off The Costume Of Circumstance, Arms Us With Terrible Freedom, So That Every Will Rushes To Deed. A Skillful Man Reads His Dreams For His Self-knowledge; Yet Not The Details, But The Quality. What Part Does He Play In Them - A Cheerful, Manly Part, Or A Poor, Drivelling Part? However Monstrous And Grotesque Their Apparitions, They Have A Substantial Truth.

That Which We Are, We Are All The While Teaching, Not Voluntarily, But Involuntarily.

A Man Is Known By The Books He Reads.

From Within Or From Behind, A Light Shines Through Us Upon Things, And Makes Us Aware That We Are Nothing, But The Light Is All.

We All Wish To Be Of Importance In One Way Or Another. The Child Coughs With Might And Main, Since It Has No Other Claim On The Company.

We Can Only Obey Our Own Polarity.

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

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

As The Sandwich Islander Believes That The Strength And Valor Of The Enemy He Kills Passes Into Himself, So We Gain The Strength Of The Temptation We Resist.

Echo Waits With Art And Care And Will The Faults Of Song Repair.

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.

The Glance Is Natural Magic. The Mysterious Communication Established Across A House Between Two Entire Strangers, Moves All The Springs Of Wonder. The Communication By The Glance Is In The Greatest Part Not Subject To The Control Of The Will. It Is The Bodily Symbol Of Identity With Nature. We Look Into The Eyes To Know If This Other Form Is Another Self, And The Eyes Will Not Lie, But Make A Faithful Confession What Inhabitant Is There.

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.

The Love Of Novels Is The Preference Of Sentiment To The Senses.

Spoons And Skimmers You Can Be Undistinguishably Together; But Vases And Statues Require Each A Pedestal For Itself.

Nature Is The Symbol Of Spirit.

The Days Are Made On A Loom Whereof The Warp And Woof Are Past And Future Time. They Are Majestically Dressed, As If Every God Brought A Thread To The Skyey Web.

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity.

It Was High Counsel That I Once Heard Given To A Young Person, 'always Do What You Are Afraid To Do.'

In Private Places, Among Sordid Objects, An Act Of Truth Or Heroism Seems At Once To Draw To Itself The Sky As Its Temple, The Sun As Its Cradle. Nature Stretches Out Her Arms To Embrace Man, Only Let His Thoughts Be Of Equal Greatness.

You Are Constantly Invited To Be What You Are.

To Believe Your Own Thought, To Believe That What Is True For You In Your Private Heart, Is True For All Men - That Is Genius... Whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist... What I Must Do, Is All That Concerns Me; Not What The People Think... Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself; Nothing, But The Triumph Of Principles.

Men Succeed When They Realize That Their Failures Are The Preparation For Their Victories.

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

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

Necessity Does Everything Well. In Our Condition Of Universal Dependence, It Seems Heroic To Let The Petitioner Be The Judge Of His Necessity, And To Give All That Is Asked, Though At Great Inconvenience.

There Are Many Virtues In Books, But The Essential Value Is The Adding Of Knowledge To Our Stock By The Record Of New Facts, And, Better, By The Record Of Intuitions Which Distribute Facts, And Are The Formulas Which Supersede All Histories.

Because The Soul Is Progressive, It Never Quite Repeats Itself, But In Every Act Attempts The Production Of A New And Fairer Whole.

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

We Are Impressed And Even Daunted By The Immense Universe To Be Explored. "what We Know Is A Point To What We Do Not Know."

History - A Biography Of A Few Stout And Earnest Persons

We Want Men And Women Who Shall Renovate Life And Our Social State But We See That Most Natures Are Insolvent, Cannot Satisfy Their Own Wants, Have An Ambition Out Of All Proportion To Their Practical Force, And So Do Lean And Beg Day And Night Continually.

Nothing Can Be More Delicate Without Being Fantastical, Nothing More Firm And Based In Nature And Sentiment, Than The Courtship And Mutual Carriage Of The Sexes.

Immitation Is Suicide.

The Unique Impression Of Jesus Upon Mankind - Whose Name Is Not So Much Written As Ploughed Into The History Of The World - Is Proof Of The Subtle Virtue Of This Infusion. Jesus Belonged To The Race Of Prophets. He Saw With Open Eyes The Mystery Of The Soul. One Man Was True To What Is In You And Me. He, As I Think, Is The Only Soul In History Who Has Appreciated The Worth Of Man.

If Speculation Tends Thus To A Terrific Unity, In Which All Things Are Absorbed, Action Tends Directly Back To Diversity. The First Is The Course Or Gravitation Of Mind; The Second Is The Power Of Nature. Nature Is Manifold. The Unity Absorbs, And Melts Or Reduces. Nature Opens And Creates. These Two Principles Reappear And Interpenetrate All Things, All Thought; The One, The Many.

Do What You're Afraid To Do.

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

Every Act Of The Man Inscribes Itself In The Memories Of His Fellows, And In His Own Manners And Face. The Air Is Full Of Sounds;the Sky, Of Tokens; The Ground Is All Memoranda And Signatures; And Every Object Covered Over With Hints, Which Speak To The Intelligent.

I Hate To Be Defended In A Newspaper. As Long As All That Is Said Is Said Against Me, I Feel A Certain Assurance Of Success. But As Soon As Honeyed Words Of Praise Are Spoken For Me, I Feel As One That Lies Unprotected Before His Enemies.

Divine Persons Are Character Born, Or, To Borrow A Phrase From Napoleon, They Are Victory Organized.

If We Consider What Happens In Conversation, In Reveries, In Remorse, In Times Of Passion, In Surprises, In The Instructions Of Dreams, Wherein Often We See Ourselves In Masquerade,--the Droll Disguises Only Magnifying And Enhancing A Real Element, And Forcing It On Our Distinct Notice,--we Shall Catch Many Hints That Will Broaden And Lighten Into Knowledge Of The Secret Of Nature.

The Lessons Of Science Should Be Experimental Also. The Sight Of A Planet Through A Telescope Is Worth All The Course On Astronomy; The Shock Of The Electric Spark In The Elbow Outvalues All Theories; The Taste Of The Nitrous Oxide, The Firing Of An Artificial Volcano, Are Better Than Volumes Of Chemistry.

If With Love Thy Heart Has Burned; If Thy Love Is Unreturned; Hide Thy Grief Within Thy Breast, Though It Tear Thee Unexpressed.

One Of The Most Wonderful Things In Nature Is A Glance Of The Eye; It Transcends Speech; It Is The Bodily Symbol Of Identity.

We Must Not Tamper With The Organic Motion Of The Soul.

The Need For A Rational Consistency Is The Hobgoblin Of Small Minds.

People With Great Gifts Are Easy To Find, But Symmetrical And Balanced Ones Never.

There Is In Nature A Parallel Unity Which Corresponds To The Unity In The Mind And Makes It Available. This Methodizing Mind Meets No Resistance In Its Attempts. The Scattered Blocks, With Which It Strives To Form A Symmetrical Structure, Fit. This Design Following After Finds With Joy That Like Design Went Before. Not Only Man Puts Things In A Row, But Things Belong In A Row.

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

Dreams And Beasts Are Two Keys By Which We Find Out The Keys Of Our Own Nature.

The Glory Of The Farmer Is That, In The Division Of Labors, It Is His Part To Create. All Trade Rests At Last On His Primitive Activity. He Stands Close To Nature; He Obtains From The Earth The Bread And The Meat. The Food Which Was Not, He Causes To Be.

Division Of Labor

Only A Biker Knows Why A Dog Sticks His Head Out Of A Car Window.

Life Too Near Paralyses Art.

When I Was Praised I Lost My Time, For Instantly I Turned Around To Look At The Work I Had Thought Slightly Of, And That Day I Made Nothing New.

Use Makes A Better Soldier Than The Most Urgent Considerations Of Duty,--familiarity With Danger Enabling Him To Estimate The Danger. He Sees How Much Is The Risk, And Is Not Afflicted With Imagination; Knows Practically Marshal Saxe's Rule, That Every Soldier Killed Costs The Enemy His Weight In Lead.

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

London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

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

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

The University Must Be Retrospective. The Gale That Gives Direction To The Vanes On All Its Towers Blows Out Of Antiquity.

If A Man Knew Anything, He Would Sit In A Corner And Be Modest; But He Is Such An Ignorant Peacock, That He Goes Bustling Up And Down, And Hits On Extraordinary Discoveries.

It Makes A Great Difference In The Force Of A Sentence, Whether A Man Be Behind It Or No.

The "times," "the Age" What Is That, But A Few Profound Persons And A Few Active Persons Who Epitomize The Times?

I Appeal Now To The Convictions Of The Communicants, And Ask Such Persons Whether They Have Not Been Occasionally Conscious Of A Painful Confusion Of Thought Between The Worship Due To God And The Commemoration Due To Christ.

One Lesson We Learn Early, That In Spite Of Seeming Difference, Men Are All Of One Pattern. We Readily Assume This With Our Mates, And Are Disappointed And Angry If We Find That We Are Premature, And That Their Watches Are Slower Than Ours. In Fact, The Only Sin Which We Never Forgive In Each Other Is Difference Of Opinion.

When The Gods Come Among Men, They Are Not Known.

Generalization Is Always A New Influx Of Divinity Into The Mind. Hence The Thrill That Attends It.

No Change Of Circumstances Can Repair A Defect Of Character.

A Frenchman May Possibly Be Clean; An Englishman Is Conscientiously Clean.

The Disease With Which The Human Mind Now Labors Is Want Of Faith

The Greater Speed And Success That Distinguish The Planting Of The Human Race In This Country, Over All Other Plantations In History, Owe Themselves Mainly To The New Subdivisions Of The State Into Small Corporations Of Land And Power.

Good Criticism Is Very Rare And Always Precious.

The Reliance On Authority Measures The Decline Of Religion, The Withdrawal Of The Soul.

Whatever Is Old Corrupts, And The Past Turns To Snakes.

A Strenuous Soul Hates Cheap Success. It Is The Ardor Of The Assailant That Makes The Vigor Of The Defendant.

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.

He In Whom The Love Of Repose Predominates Will Accept The First Creed, The First Philosophy, The First Political Party He Meets — Most Likely His Father's. He Gets Rest, Commodity, And Reputation; But He Shuts The Door Of Truth.

The Foolish Man Wonders At The Unusual, But The Wise Man At The Usual.

We Animate What We Can See, And We See Only What We Animate.

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

If The Race Is Good, So Is The Place.

The World Is Full Of Judgment-days, And Into Every Assembly That A Man Enters, In Every Action He Attempts, He Is Gauged And Stamped.

Besides, Our Action On Each Other, Good As Well As Evil, Is So Incidental And At Random, That We Can Seldom Hear The Acknowledgments Of Any Person Who Would Thank Us For A Benefit, Without Some Shame And Humiliation. We Can Rarely Strike A Direct Stroke, But Must Be Content With An Oblique One; We Seldom Have The Satisfaction Of Yielding A Direct Benefit, Which Is Directly Received.

Rude Poets Of The Tavern Hearth, Squandering Your Unquoted Mirth, Which Keeps The Ground, And Never Soars, While Jake Retorts, And Reuben Roars; Tough And Screaming, As Birch-bark, Goes Like Bullet To Its Mark; While The Solid Curse And Jeer Never Balk The Waiting Ear.

Men Consort In Camp And Town But The Poet Dwells Alone.

Words Are Finite Organs Of The Infinite Mind. They Cannot Cover The Dimensions Of What Is In Truth. They Break, Chop, And Impoverish It.

Say Thank You! I Want To Hear You Say It Now. Out Loud. 'thank You.' You're Saying Thank You Because Your Faith Is So Strong That You Don't Doubt That Whatever The Problem, You'll Get Through It. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know That Even In The Eye Of The Storm, God Has Put A Rainbow In The Clouds. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know There's No Problem Created That Can Compare To The Creator Of All Things. Say Thank You!

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions. All Life Is An Experiment. The More Experiments You Make The Better. What If They Are A Little Coarse And You May Get Your Coat Soiled Or Torn? What If You Do Fail, And Get Fairly Rolled In The Dirt Once Or Twice? Up Again, You Shall Never Be So Afraid Of A Tumble.

Every Vice Is Only An Exaggeration Of A Necessary And Virtuous Function.

Exaggeration Is

He That Loveth Maketh His Own The Grandeur He Loves

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.

Money Is The Representative Of A Certain Quantity Of Corn Or Other Commodity. It Is So Much Warmth, So Much Bread.

Thought And Knowledge Are Natures In Which Apparatus And Pretension Avail Nothing. Gowns, And Pecuniary Foundations, Though Of Towns Of Gold, Can Never Countervail The Least Sentence Or Syllable Of Wit. Forget This, And Out American Colleges Will Recede In Their Public Importance Whilst They Grow Richer Every Year.

The Statue Is Then Beautiful When It Begins To Be Incomprehensible, When It Is Passing Out Of Criticism, And Can No Longer Be Defined By Compass And Measuring-wand, But Demands An Active Imagination To Go With It, And To Say What It Is In The Act Of Doing.

Good Churches Are Not Built By Bad Men; At Least, There Must Be Probity And Enthusiasm Somewhere In The Society. These Minsters Were Neither Built Nor Filled By Atheists.

Flowers Are The Earth Laughing.

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

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

When We See A Soul Whose Acts Are All Regal, Graceful, And Pleasant As Roses, We Must Thank God That Such Things Can Be And Are.

Self Trust Is The Essence Of Heroism.

The Field Cannot Be Seen From Within The Field.

Tell Them Dear, That If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being: Why Thou Wert There, O Rival Of The Rose! I Never Sought To Ask, I Never Knew: But, In My Simple Ignorance Suppose The Selfsame Power That Brought Me There Brought You.

For It Is Only The Finite That Has Wrought And Suffered; The Infinite Lies Stretched In Smiling Repose.

Out Of Plato Come All Things That Are Still Written And Debated About Among Men Of Thought.

The Affections Cannot Keep Their Youth Any More Than Men.

Proverbs, Like The Sacred Books Of Each Nation, Are The Sanctuary Of The Intuitions. That Which The Droning World, Chained To Appearances, Will Not Allow The Realist To Say In His Own Words, It Will Suffer Him To Say In Proverbs Without Contradiction.

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

There Is No Thought In Any Mind, But It Quickly Tends To Convert Itself Into Power.

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.

Sleep Takes Off The Costume Of Circumstance, Arms Us With Terrible Freedom, So That Every Will Rushes To A Deed.

We Seek Our Friend Not Sacredly, But With An Adulterate Passion Which Would Appropriate Him To Ourselves.

The Mind, Once Stretched By A New Idea, Never Returns To Its Original Dimensions.

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

Some Thoughts Always Find Us Young, And Keep Us So. Such A Thought Is The Love Of The Universal And Eternal Beauty.

Every Moment Instructs, And Every Object; For Wisdom Is Infused Into Every Form. It Has Been Poured Into Us As Blood; It Convulsed Us As Pain; It Slid Into Us As Pleasure; It Enveloped Us In Dull, Melancholy Days, Or In Days Of Cheerful Labor; We Did Not Guess Its Essence Until After Long Time.

Of Lower States, Of Acts Of Routine And Sense, We Can Tell Somewhat; But The Masterpieces Of God, The Total Growths And Universalmovements Of The Soul, He Hideth; They Are Incalculable. I Can Know That Truth Is Divine And Helpful; But How It Shall Help Me I Can Have No Guess, For So To Be Is The Sole Inlet Of So To Know.

Hast Thou Named All The Birds Without A Gun?

To Wade In Marshes And Sea Margins Is The Destiny Of Certain Bird, And They Are So Accurately Made For This That They Are Imprisoned In Those Places. Each Animal Out Of Its Habitat Would Starve. To The Physician, Each Man, Each Woman, Is An Amplification Of One Organ. A Soldier, A Locksmith, A Bank-clerk, And A Dancer Could Not Exchange Functions. And Thus We Are Victims Of Adaptation.

I Feel The Same Truth How Often In My Trivial Conversation With My Neighbours, That Somewhat Higher In Each Of Us Overlooks This By-play, And Jove Nods To Jove From Behind Each Of Us.

The City Is Recruited From The Country.

I Covet Truth; Beauty Is Unripe Childhood's Cheat; I Leave It Behind With The Games Of Youth.

No Great Man Ever Complains Of Want Of Opportunity.

Art Should Exhilarate, And Throw Down The Walls Of Circumstance On Every Side, Awakening In The Beholder The Same Sense Of Universal Relation And Power Which The Work Evinced In The Artist.

To Educate The Wise Man, The State Exists; And With The Appearance Of The Wise Man, The State Expires. The Appearance Of Charactermakes The State Unnecessary. The Wise Man Is The State.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See. If You Look For What Is Good And What You Can Be Grateful For You Will Find It Everywhere.

Not The Sun Or Summer Alone, But Every Hour And Season Yields Its Tribute Of Delight.

We Must Be Very Suspicious Of The Deceptions Of The Element Of Time. It Takes A Good Deal Of Time To Eat Or To Sleep, Or To Earn Ahundred Dollars, And A Very Little Time To Entertain A Hope And An Insight Which Becomes The Light Of Our Life.

If You Would Lift Me Up You Must Be On Higher Ground.

The Pleasure Of Eloquence Is In Greatest Part Owing Often To The Stimulus Of The Occasion Which Produces It- - To The Magic Of Sympathy, Which Exalts The Feeling Of Each By Radiating On Him The Feeling Of All.

There Is A Tendency For Things To Right Themselves.

A Character Is Like An Acrostic Or Alexandrian Stanza; - Read It Forward, Backward, Or Across, It Still Spells The Same Thing.

The Value Of A Principle Is The Number Of Things It Will Explain.

There Is Hope In Extravagance, There Is None In Routine.

Children And Savages Use Only Nouns Or Names Of Things, Which They Convert Into Verbs, And Apply To Analogous Mental Acts.

He Is Only Rich Who Owns The Day. There Is No King, Rich Man, Fairy, Or Demon Who Possesses Such Power As That.

Every Man Alone Is Sincere. At The Entrance Of A Second Person, Hypocrisy Begins

I Find The Englishman To Be Him Of All Men Who Stands Firmest In His Shoes. They Have In Themselves What They Value In Their Horses, Mettle And Bottom.

People Destined To Meet Will Do So, Apparently By Chance, At Precisely The Right Moment.

Power And Speed Be Hands And Feet.

Coolness And Absence Of Heat And Haste Indicate Fine Qualities.

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

The Martyr Cannot Be Dishonored. Every Lash Inflicted Is A Tongue Of Fame; Every Prison A More Illustrious Abode.

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

The Secrets Of Life Are Not Shown Except To Sympathy And Likeness.

Miracle Comes To The Miraculous, Not To The Arithmetician.

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.

What I Must Do Is All That Concerns Me, Not What People Think. This Rule,equally Arduous In Actual And Intellectual Life, May Serve For The Whole Distinction Between Greatness And Meanness. It Is The Harder, Because You Will Always Find Those Who Think They Know What Is Your Duty Better Than You Know It. 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.

Every Book Is A Quotation; And Every House Is A Quotation Out Of All Forests, And Mines, And Stone Quarries; And Every Man Is A Quotation From All His Ancestors.

I Wish To Say What I Think And Feel Today, With The Proviso That Tomorrow Perhaps I Shall Contradict It All.

Consideration Is The Soil In Which Wisdom May Be Expected To Grow, And Strength Be Given To Every Up-springing Plant Of Duty.

The Great Poet Makes Us Feel Our Own Wealth, And Then We Think Less Of His Compositions. His Best Communication To Our Mind Is To Teach Us To Despise All He Has Done.

For All Our Penny-wisdom, For All Our Soul-destroying Slavery To Habit, It Is Not To Be Doubted That All Men Have Sublime Thoughts; That All Men Value The Few Real Hours Of Life; They Love To Be Heard; They Love To Be Caught Up Into The Vision Of Principles. We Mark With Light In The Memory The Few Interviews We Have Had, In The Dreary Years Of Routine And Of Sin, With Souls That Made Our Souls Wiser; That Spoke What We Thought; That Told Us What We Knew; That Gave Us Leave To Be What We Only Were.

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.

Men Grind And Grind In The Mill Of A Truism, And Nothing Comes Out But What Was Put In. But The Moment They Desert The Tradition For A Spontaneous Thought, Then Poetry, Wit, Hope, Virtue, Learning, Anecdote, And All Flock To Their Aid.

If Any Mention Was Made Of Homicide, Madness, Adultery, And Intolerable Tortures, We Would Let The Church-bells Ring Louder, The Church-organ Swell Its Peal And Drown The Hideous Sound. The Sugar They Raised Was Excellent: Nobody Tasted Blood In It.

The Prayer Of The Farmer Kneeling In His Field To Weed It, The Prayer Of The Rower Kneeling With The Stroke Of His Oar, Are True Prayers Heard Throughout Nature.

The Eyes Of Men Converse As Much As Their Tongues.

Society Is Infested By Persons Who, Seeing That The Sentiments Please, Counterfeit The Expression Of Them. These We Call Sentimentalists - Talkers Who Mistake The Description For The Thing, Saying For Having.

Some Of Your Griefs You Have Cured, And The Sharpest You Still Have Survived, But What Torments Of Grief You've Endured From Evils That Never Arrived.

...what Torments Of Pain Have You Endured That Haven't As Yet Arrived? And May Never!

Isolation Must Precede True Society.

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

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.

Pain Is Superficial, And Therefore Fear Is. The Torments Of Martyrdoms Are Probably Most Keenly Felt By The By-standers.

Best Masters For The Young Writer And Speaker Are The Fault- Finding Brothers And Sisters At Home Who Will Not Spare Him, But Willpick And Cavil, And Tell The Odious Truth.

Life Is Short But There Is Always Time For Courtesy.

Talent Alone Cannot Make A Writer. There Must Be A Man Behind The Book; A Personality Which, By Birth And Quality, Is Pledged To The Doctrines There Set Forth, And Which Exists To See And State Things So, And Not Otherwise.

When We Have Broken Our God Of Tradition, And Ceased From Our God Of Rhetoric, Then May God Fire The Heart With His Presence.

Plants Are The Young Of The World, Vessels Of Health And Vigor; But They Grope Ever Upward Towards Consciousness; The Trees Are Imperfect Men, And Seem To Bemoan Their Imprisonment, Rooted In The Ground.

By His Machines Man Can Dive And Remain Under Water Like A Shark; Can Fly Like A Hawk In The Air; Can See Atoms Like A Gnat; Can See The System Of The Universe Of Uriel, The Angel Of The Sun; Can Carry Whatever Loads A Ton Of Coal Can Lift; Can Knock Down Cities With His Fist Of Gunpowder; Can Recover The History Of His Race By The Medals Which The Deluge, And Every Creature, Civil Or Savage Or Brute, Has Involuntarily Dropped Of Its Existence; And Divine The Future Possibility Of The Planet And Its Inhabitants By His Perception Of Laws Of Nature.

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

Each Philosopher, Each Bard, Each Actor Has Only Done For Me, As By A Delegate, What One Day I Can Do For Myself.

What Would Be The Use Of Immortality To A Person Who Cannot Use Well A Half An Hour?

Do You Want To Be A Power In The World? Then Be Yourself. Be True To The Highest Within Your Soul And Then Allow Yourself To Be Governed By No Customs Or Conventionaliti Es Or Arbitrary Man-made Rules That Are Not Founded On Principle.

Religionists Are Clinging To Little, Positive, Verbal, Formal Versions Of The Moral Law... While The Laws Of The Law, The Great Circling Truths Whose Only Adequate Symbol Is The Material Laws, The Astronomy Etc. Are All Unobserved, And Sneered At When Spoken Of.

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!

Thoughts Come Into Our Minds By Avenues Which We Never Left Open, And Thoughts Go Out Of Our Minds Through Avenues Which We Never Voluntarily Opened.

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

Shakespeare Carries Us To Such A Lofty Strain Of Intelligent Activity, As To Suggest A Wealth Which Beggars His Own; And We Then Feel That The Splendid Works Which He Has Created, And Which In Other Hours We Extol As A Sort Of Self-existent Poetry, Take No Stronger Hold Of Real Nature Than The Shadow Of A Passing Traveller On The Rock. The Inspiration Which Uttered Itself In Hamlet And Lear Could Utter Things As Good From Day To Day, For Ever.

For Flowers That Bloom About Our Feet; For Tender Grass, So Fresh, So Sweet; For Song Of Bird, And Hum Of Bee; For All Things Fair We Hear Or See, Father In Heaven, We Thank Thee!

The Best Lightning Rod For Your Protection Is Your Own Spine.

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.

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise.

Go, Speed The Stars Of Thought On To Their Shining Goals; - The Sower Scatters Broad His Seed, The Wheat Thou Strew'st Be Souls.

The Senses Collect The Surface Facts Of Matter... It Was Sensation; When Memory Came, It Was Experience; When Mind Acted, It Was Knowledge; When Mind Acted On It As Knowledge, It Was Thought.

Every Man Has A Choice Between Love Of Truth And Love Of Repose. Love Of Repose Brings Him A Solid Reputation And Peaceful Life; Love Of Truth Keeps Him In Suspense. A Man Who Loves Truth Respects The Highest Law Of His Being.

And Dazzling Memory Revive.refresh The Faded Tints, Recut The Aged Prints, And Write My Old Adventures, With The Pen Which, On The First Day, Drew Upon The Tablets Blue The Dancing Pleiads, And The Eternal Men.

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

Nobody Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

Every Day, The Sun; And, After Sunset, Night And Her Stars. Ever The Winds Blow; Ever The Grass Grows. Every Day, Men And Women, Conversing, Beholding And Beholden. The Scholar Is He Of All Men Whom This Spectacle Most Engages. He Must Settle Its Value In His Mind. What Is Nature To Him?

Happy Is The House That Shelters A Friend.

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Charles De Lint

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