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The Influence Of The Senses Have In Men Overpowered The Thought To The Degree That The Walls Of Time And Space Have Come To Look Solid, Real And Insurmountable. .. Yet Time And Space Are But Inverse Measures Of The Power Of The Mind. Man Is Capable Of Abolishing Them Both.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Influence Of The

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Influence Of The Senses Have In Men Overpowered The Thought To The Degree That The Walls Of Time And Space Have Come To Look Solid, Real And Insurmountable. .. Yet Time And Space Are But Inverse Measures Of The Power Of The Mind. Man Is Capable Of Abolishing Them Both.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Music That Can Deepest Reach And Cure All Ill Is Cordial Speech.

The Regular Course Of Studies, The Years Of Academical And Professional Education, Have Not Yielded Me Better Facts Than Some Idle Books Under The Bench At The Latin School.

Of Nature Itself Upon The Soul; The Sunrise, The Haze Of Autumn, The Winter Starlight Seem Interlocutors; The Prevailing Sense Is That Of An Exposition In Poetry; A High Discourse, The Voice Of The Speaker Seems To Breathe As Much From The Landscape As From His Own Breast; It Is Nature Communing With The Seer.

Eloquence Is The Power To Translate A Truth Into Language Perfectly Intelligible To The Person To Whom You Speak.

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

Overhead The Sanctities Of The Stars Shine Forever-more... Pouring Satire On The Pompous Business Of The Day Which They Close, And Making The Generations Of Men Show Slight And Evanescent.

When There Is No Vision, People Perish.

He Decided To Give Up His Large Ambition Of Knowledge And Action For Any Narrow Craft Or Profession, Aiming At A Much More Comprehensive Calling, The Art Of Living.

Women, As Most Susceptible, Are The Best Index Of The Coming Hour.

Commerce Is A Game Of Skill Which Everyone Cannot Play And Few Can Play Well.

There Is No Eloquence Without A Man Behind It.

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

You Cannot See The Mountain Near.

Men Cease To Interest Us When We Find Their Limitations. The Only Sin Is Limitation. As Soon As You Once Come Up With A Man's Limitations, It Is All Over With Him.

Look Out Into The July Night, And See The Broad Belt Of Silver Flame Which Flashes Up The Half Of Heaven, Fresh And Delicate As The Bonfires Of The Meadow-flies. Yet The Powers Of Numbers Cannot Compute Its Enormous Age,—lasting As Space And Time,—embosomed In Time And Space.

No Man Thoroughly Understands A Truth Until He Has Contended Against It.

In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

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.

My Companion Assumes To Know My Mood And Habit Of Thought, And We Go On From Explanation To Explanation, Until All Is Said That Words Can, And We Leave Matters Just As They Were At First, Because Of That Vicious Assumption.

The Buddhist, Who Thanks No Man, Who Says "do Not Flatter Your Benefactors," But Who, In His Conviction That Every Good Deed Can By No Possibility Escape Its Reward, Will Not Deceive The Benefactor By Pretending That He Has Done More Than He Should, Is A Transcendentalist.

The Democrat Is A Young Conservative; The Conservative Is An Old Democrat. The Aristocrat Is The Democrat Ripe, And Gone To Seed,--because Both Parties Stand On The One Ground Of The Supreme Value Of Property, Which One Endeavors To Get, And The Other To Keep.

Nothing Is At Last Sacred But The Integrity Of Your Own Mind.

Talents Differ; All Is Well And Wisely Put; If I Cannot Carry Forests On My Back, Neither Can You Crack A Nut.

Our Young People Are Diseased With The Theological Problems Of Original Sin, Origin Of Evil, Predestination, And The Like. These Never Presented A Practical Difficulty To Any Man,--never Darkened Across Any Man's Road, Who Did Not Go Out Of His Way To Seek Them. These Are The Soul's Mumps, And Measles, And Whooping- Coughs, And Those Who Have Not Caught Them Cannot Describe Their Health Or Prescribe A Cure. A Simple Mind Will Not Know These Enemies.

Besides The General Infusion Of Wit To Heighten Civility, The Direct Splendor Of Intellectual Power Is Ever Welcome In Fine Society, As The Costliest Addition To Its Rule And Its Credit.

To Help The Young Soul, To Add Energy, Inspire Hope, And Blow The Coals Into A Useful Flame; To Redeem Defeat By New Thought And Firm Action, This, Though Not Easy, Is The Work Of Divine Men.

A Mob Is A Society Obodies, Voluntarily Bereaving Themselves Oreason, And Traversing Its Work. The Mob Is Man, Voluntarily Descending To The Nature Othe Beast. Its Fit Hour Oactivity Is Night; Its Actions Are Insane, Like Its Whole Constitution.

We Boast Our Emancipation From Many Superstitions; But If We Have Broken Any Idols, It Is Through A Transfer Of Idolatry.

For All Symbols Are Fluxional; All Language Is Vehicular And Transitive, And Is Good, As Ferries And Horses Are, For Conveyance, Not As Farms And Houses Are, For Homestead.

A Friend Is The Hope Of The Heart.

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.

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

The World Of Men Show Like A Comedy Without Laughter: Populations, Interests, Government, History; 't Is All Toy Figures In A Toyhouse.

Men Are Lenses Through Which We Read Our Own Minds.

Men Such As They Are, Very Naturally Seek Money Or Power; And Power Because It Is As Good As Money.

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?

The Picture Waits For My Verdict; It Is Not To Command Me, But I Am To Settle Its Claim To Praise.

Universities Are Of Course Hostile To Geniuses.

If I Have Renounced The Search Of Truth, If I Have Come Into The Port Of Some Pretending Dogmatism, Some New Church, Some Schelling Or Cousin, I Have Died To All Use Of These New Events That Are Born Out Of Prolific Time Into Multitude Of Life Every Hour. I Am As Bankrupt To Whom Brilliant Opportunities Offer In Vain. He Has Just Foreclosed His Freedom, Tied His Hands, Locked Himself Up And Given The Key To Another To Keep.

Words Are Also Actions, And Actions Are A Kind Of Words.

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

I Read Your Piece On Plato. Holmes, When You Strike At A King, You Must Kill Him.

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.

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.

Heaven Walks Among Us Ordinarily Muffled In Such Triple Or Tenfold Disguises That The Wisest Are Deceived And No One Suspects The Days To Be Gods.

There Is No Den In The Wide World To Hide A Rogue. Commit A Crime, And The Earth Is Made Of Glass. Commit A Crime, And It Seems As If A Coat Of Snow Fell On The Ground, Such As Reveals In The Woods The Track Of Every Partridge And Fox And Squirrel And Mole.

Many Photographers Think They Are Photographing Nature When They Are Only Caricaturing Her.

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

Infancy Conforms To Nobody; All Conform To It.

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

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

Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands.

Don't Waste Life In Doubts And Fears; Spend Yourself On The Work Before You, Well Assured That The Right Performance Of This Hour's Duties Will Be The Best Preparation For The Hours And Ages That Will Follow It.

I See Not Any Road Of Perfect Peace Which A Man Can Walk But After The Counsel Of His Own Bosom.

In Youth, We Clothe Ourselves With Rainbows, With Hope & Love, & Go As Brave As The Zodiack. In Age We Put Out Another Sort Of Perspiration; Gout, Fever, Rheumatism, Caprice, Doubt, Fretting, And Avarice.

I Look On Sculpture As History. I Do Not Think The Apollo And The Jove Impossible In Flesh And Blood. Every Trait The Artist Recorded In Stone, He Had Seen In Life, And Better Than His Copy.

That Which We Call Sin In Others Is Experiment For Us.

A Good Intention Clothes Itself With Sudden Power. When A God Wishes To Ride, Any Chip Or Pebble Will Bud And Shoot Out Winged Feet, And Serve Him For A Horse.

Many Times The Reading Of A Book Has Made The Future Of A Man.

We Are Rich Only Through What We Give, And Poor Only Through What We Refuse.

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 Line Of Beauty Is The Line Of Perfect Economy.

Writing Should Be The Settlement Of Dew On The Leaf.

The Eye Is The Best Of Artists.

We Can Only Obey Our Own Polarity.

But Whoso Is Heroic Will Always Find Crises To Try His Edge.

The World Is Emblematic. Parts Of Speech Are Metaphors, Because The Whole Of Nature Is A Metaphor Of The Human Mind.

Common Sense Is Genius Dressed In Its Working Clothes.

A Man Should Carry Nature In His Head.

We Are Such Lovers Of Self-reliance, That We Excuse In A Man Many Sins, If He Will Show Us A Complete Satisfaction In His Position, Which Asks No Leave To Be, Of Mine, Or Any Man's Good Opinion.

Treat Your Friend As A Spectacle.

The Good Husband Finds Method As Efficient In The Packing Of Fire-wood In A Shed, Or In The Harvesting Of Fruits In The Cellar, As In Peninsular Campaigns Or The Files Of The Department Of State.

A Little Integrity Is Better Than Any Career.

For Every Grain Of Wit There Is A Grain Of Folly.

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

The Customer Is The Immediate Jewel Of Our Souls. Him We Flatter, Him We Feast, Compliment, Vote For, And Will Not Contradict.

Fear Is Cruel And Mean.

The Unsaid Part Is The Best Of Every Discourse.

Let Us Unlearn Our Wisdom Of The World. Let Us Lie Low In The Lord's Power, And Learn That Truth Alone Makes Rich And Great.

We Hear Eagerly Every Thought And Word Quoted From An Intellectual Man. But In His Presence Our Own Mind Is Roused To Activity, And We Forget Very Fast What He Says.

The Flowers Talk When The Wind Blows Over Them.

The Secret Of Success Lies Never In The Amount Of Money, But In The Relation Of Income To Outgo.

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.

Some Men At The Approach Of A Dispute Neigh Like Horses. Unless There Be An Argument, They Think Nothing Is Doing. Some Talkers Excel In The Precision With Which They Formulate Their Thoughts, So That You Get From Them Somewhat To Remember; Others Lay Criticism Asleep By A Charm. Especially Women Use Words That Are Not Words,--as Steps In A Dance Are Not Steps,--but Reproduce The Genius Of That They Speak Of; As The Sound Of Some Bells Makes Us Think Of The Bell Merely, Whilst The Church Chimes In The Distance Bring The Church And Its Serious Memories Before Us.

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.

The Finest Wits Have Their Sediment.

Little Minds Have Little Worries, Big Minds Have No Time For Worries.

Teaching Is The Perpetual End And Office Of All Things. Teaching, Instruction Is The Main Design That Shines Through The Sky And Earth.

When A Man Says To Me, "i Have The Intensest Love Of Nature," At Once I Know That He Has None.

Saving The Earth

A Person's Life Is Limited But Serving The People Is Limitless. I Want To Devote My Limited Life To Serving The People Limitlessly.

The Poet Knows That He Speaks Adequately, Then, Only When He Speaks Somewhat Wildly.

Life Is A Series Of Surprises.

Fear Is A Great Instructor.

I'm Happier. I Guess I Made Up My Mind To Be That Way.

Art Is A Jealous Mistress; And If A Man Have A Genius For Painting, Poetry, Music, Architecture Or Philosophy, He Makes A Bad Husband And An Ill Provider.

The Health Of The Eye Seems To Demand A Horizon. We Are Never Tired, So Long As We Can See Far Enough.

Inaction Is Cowardice, But There Can Be No Scholar Without The Heroic Mind.

We Fancy Men Are Individuals; So Are Pumpkins; But Every Pumpkin In The Field Goes Through Every Point Of Pumpkin History.

Friendship Buys Friendship.

All Our Progress Is An Unfolding, Like The Vegetable Bud. You Have First An Instinct, Then An Opinion, Then A Knowledge, As The Plant Has Root, Bud, And Fruit. Trust The Instinct To The End, Though You Can Render No Reason. It Is Vain To Hurry It. By Trusting It To The End It Shall Ripen Into Truth, And You Shall Know Why You Believe.

The Church Seems To Totter To Its Fall, Almost All Life Extinct. On This Occasion, Any Complaisance Would Be Criminal Which Told You, Whose Hope And Commission It Is To Preach The Faith Of Christ, That The Faith Of Christ Is Preached.

Beauty Without Grace Is The Hook Without The Bait.

Solitude Is Naught And Society Is Naught. Alternate Them And The Good Of Each Is Seen.

I Would Put Myself In The Attitude To Look In The Eye An Abstract Truth, And I Cannot. I Blench And Withdraw On This Side And On That. I Seem To Know What He Meant Who Said, No Man Can See God Face To Face And Live.

No Man Can Quite Emancipate Himself From His Age And Country, Or Produce A Model In Which The Education, The Religion, The Politics, Usages, And Arts, Of His Times Shall Have No Share.

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

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.

And What Avails It That Science Has Come To Treat Space And Time As Simply Forms Of Thought, And The Material World As Hypothetical, And Withal Our Pretension Of Property And Even Of Self-hood Are Fading With The Rest, If, At Last, Even Our Thoughts Are Not Finalities, But The Incessant Flowing And Ascension Reach These Also, And Each Thought Which Yesterday Was A Finality, To-day Is Yielding To A Larger Generalization?

A Creative Economy Is The Fuel Of Magnificence.

Wit Makes Its Own Welcome, And Levels All Distinctions.

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

Democracy Becomes A Government Of Bullies Tempered By Editors.

Democracies Have

In Old Egypt, It Was Established Law, That The Vote Of A Prophet Be Reckoned Equal To A Hundred Hands. I Think It Was Much Under-estimated.

There Is A Class Of Persons To Whom By All Spiritual Affinity I Am Bought And Sold; For Them I Will Go To Prison, If Need Be; But Your Miscellaneous Popular Charities; The Education At College Of Fools; The Building Of Meeting-houses To The Vain End To Which Many Now Stand; Alms To Sots; And The Thousandfold Relief Societies; - Though I Confess With Shame I Sometimes Succumb And Give The Dollar, It Is A Wicked Dollar Which By And By I Shall Have The Manhood To Withhold.

But A Public Oration Is An Escapade, A Non-committal, An Apology, A Gag, And Not A Communication, Not A Speech, Not A Man.

The Secret Of Success In Education Is Respecting The Students.

Secret To Success

Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Every One Of Its Members.

Wise Cultivated, Genial Conversation Is The Last Flower Of Civilization, And The Best Result Which Life Has To Offer Us,--a Cup For Gods, Which Has No Repentance. Conversation Is Our Account Of Ourselves. All We Have, All We Can, All We Know, Is Brought Into Play, And As The Reproduction In Finer Form, Of All Our Havings.

God Has Delegated Himself To A Million Deputies.

I Thought As I Rode In The Cold Pleasant Light Of Sunday Morning How Silent & Passive Nature Offers, Every Morn, Her Wealth To Man; She Is Immensely Rich, He Is Welcome To Her Entire Goods, Which He Speaks No Word, Only Leaves Over Doors Ajar, Hall, Store Room, & Cellar. He May Do As He Will: If He Takes Her Hint & Uses Her Goods, She Speaks No Word; If He Blunders & Starves, She Says Nothing.

Science Does Not Know Its Debt To Imagination. Goethe Did Not Believe That A Great Naturalist Could Exist Without This Faculty.

Four Snakes Gliding Up And Down A Hollow For No Purpose That I Could See - Not To Eat, Not For Love, But Only Gliding.

A Weed Is A Plant We've Found No Use For Yet.

Truth Is Too Simple For Us: We Do Not Like Those Who Unmask Our Illusions.

The Nonchalance Of Boys Who Are Sure Of A Dinner, And Would Disdain As Much As A Lord To Do Or Say Aught To Conciliate One, Is The Healthy Attitude Of Human Nature.

I Like Man, But Not Men.

We Flee Away From Cities, But We Bring The Best Of Cities, These Learned Classifiers, Men Knowing What They Seek, Armed Eyes Of Experts.

All Men, In The Abstract, Are Just And Good; What Hinders Them, In The Particular, Is, The Momentary Predominance Of The Finite And Individual Over The General Truth. The Condition Of Our Incarnation In A Private Self, Seems To Be, A Perpetual Tendency To Prefer The Private Law, To Obey The Private Impulse, To The Exclusion Of The Law Of The Universal Being.

Senators And Presidents Have Climbed So High With Pain Enough, Not Because They Think The Place Specially Agreeable, But As An Apology For Real Worth, And To Vindicate Their Manhood In Our Eyes. This Conspicuous Chair Is Their Compensation To Themselves For Being Of A Poor, Cold, Hard Nature.

A Sage Is The Instructor Of A Hundred Ages.

Of Immortality, The Soul, When Well Employed, Is Incurious. It Is So Well, That It Is Sure That It Will Be Well. It Asks No Questions Of The Supreme Power.

Little Thinks, In The Field, Yon Red-cloaked Clown, Of Thee, From The Hill-top Looking Down; And The Heifer, That Lows In The Upland Farm, Far-heard, Lows Not Thine Ear To Charm; The Sexton Tolling The Bell At Noon, Dreams Not That Great Napoleon Sto

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

A Great Man Stands On God. A Small Man On A Great Man.

It Is One Light Which Beams Out Of A Thousand Stars. It Is One Soul Which Animates All Men.

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

Oxford Is A Little Aristocracy In Itself, Numerous And Dignified Enough To Rank With Other Estates In The Realm; And Where Fame And Secular Promotion Are To Be Had For Study, And In A Direction Which Has The Unanimous Respect Of All Cultivated Nations.

Railroad Iron Is A Magician's Rod, In Its Power To Evoke The Sleeping Energies Of Land And Water.

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

The Only Sin Is Limitation. As Soon As You Once Come Up With A Man's Limitations, It Is All Over With Him. Has He Talents? Has Heenterprise? Has He Knowledge? It Boots Not. Infinitely Alluring And Attractive Was He To You Yesterday, A Great Hope, A Sea To Swim In; Now, You Have Found His Shores, Found It A Pond, And You Care Not If You Never See It Again.

I Like People Who Can Do Things

Wisdom Is Not Found With Those Who Dwell At Their Ease; Rather Nature, When She Adds Brain, Adds Difficulty.

The Bitterest Tragic Element In Life To Be Derived From An Intellectual Source Is The Belief In A Brute Fate Or Destiny.

All Good Conversation, Manners, And Action Come From A Spontaneity Which Forgets Usages And Makes The Moment Great.

We Love Flattery, Even Though We Are Not Deceived By It, Because It Shows That We Are Of Importance Enough To Be Courted.

What Terrible Questions We Are Learning To Ask! The Former Men Believed In Magic, By Which Temples, Cities, And Men Were Swallowed Up, And All Trace Of Them Gone. We Are Coming On The Secret Of A Magic Which Sweeps Out Of Men's Minds All Vestige Of Theism And Beliefs Which They And Their Fathers Held And Were Framed Upon.

The Only Sin That We Never Forgive In Each Other Is A Difference In Opinion.

The Life Of Man Is A Self-evolving Circle.

Imitation Cannot Go Above Its Model.

In The Highest Civilization, The Book Is Still The Highest Delight. He Who Has Once Known Its Satisfactions Is Provided With A Resource Against Calamity.

The Only Compensation Which War Offers For Its Manifold Mischiefs, Is In The Great Personal Qualities To Which It Gives Scope And Occasion.

Personal Qualities

It Is Better To Be A Thorn In The Side Of A Friend Than An Echo.

...as There Is No Screen Or Ceiling Between Our Heads And The Infinite Heavens, So Is There No Bar Or Wall In The Soul Where Man, The Effect, Ceases, And God, The Cause, Begins. The Walls Are Taken Away. We Lie Open On One Side To The Deeps Of Spiritual Nature, To The Attributes Of God. Justice We See And Know, Love, Freedom, Power. These Natures No Man Ever Got Above, But They Tower Over Us, And Most In The Moment When Our Interests Tempt Us To Wound Them.

The Characteristic Of Genuine Heroism Is Its Persistency. All Men Have Wandering Impulses, Fits And Starts Of Generosity. But When You Have Resolved To Be Great, Abide By Yourself, And Do Not Weakly Try To Reconcile Yourself With The World. The Heroic Cannot Be The Common, Nor The Common The Heroic.

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

All That Can Be Done For You Is Nothing To What You Can Do For Yourself.

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

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.

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

The World Is All Gates, All Opportunities, Strings Of Tension Waiting To Be Struck.

Self Sacrifice Is The Real Miracle Out Of Which All The Reported Miracles Grow.

The First Wealth Is Health.

I May Say It Of Our Preposterous Use Of Books,--he Knew Not What To Do, And So He Read.

A Painter Told Me That Nobody Could Draw A Tree Without In Some Sort Becoming A Tree.

An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought.

Life Is A Series Of Surprises And Would Not Be Worth Taking Or Keeping If It Were Not.

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

Whatever Appeals To The Imagination, By Transcending The Ordinary Limits Of Human Ability, Wonderfully Encourages And Liberates Us.

Each Man Reserves To Himself Alone The Right Of Being Tedious.

Courage Consists In Equality To The Problem Before Us.

Is The Acorn Better Than The Oak Which Is Its Fullness And Completion?

Among Provocative, The Next Best Thing To Good Preaching Is Bad Preaching.

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.

We But Half Express Ourselves, And Are Ashamed Of That Divine Idea Which Each Of Us Represents.

Pretension May Sit Still, But Cannot Act. Pretension Never Feigned An Act Of Real Greatness. Pretension Never Wrote An Iliad, Nordrove Back Xerxes, Nor Christianized The World, Nor Abolished Slavery.

Solitude, The Safeguard Of Mediocrity, Is To Genius, The Stern Friend, The Cold, Obscure Shelter Where Moult The Wings Which Will Bear It Farther Than Suns And Stars.

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

When The Master Of The Universe Has Points To Carry In His Government He Impresses His Will In The Structure Of Minds.

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

Is It Not Manifest That Our Academic Institutions Should Have A Wider Scope; That They Should Not Be Timid And Keep The Ruts Of The Last Generation, But That Wise Men Thinking For Themselves And Heartily Seeking The Good Of Mankind, And Counting The Cost Of Innovation, Should Dare To Arouse The Young To A Just And Heroic Life; That The Moral Nature Should Be Addressed In The School-room, And Children Should Be Treated As The High-born Candidates Of Truth And Virtue?

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.

Time, Which Shows So Vacant, Indivisible, And Divine In Its Coming, Is Slit And Peddled Into Trifles And Tatters. A Door Is To Bepainted, A Lock To Be Repaired. I Want Wood, Or Oil, Or Meal, Or Salt; The House Smokes, Or I Have A Headache; Then The Tax; And An Affair To Be Transacted With A Man Without Heart Or Brains; And The Stinging Recollection Of An Injurious Or Very Awkward Word,--these Eat Up The Hours.

Vivacity, Leadership, Must Be Had, And We Are Not Allowed To Be Nice In Choosing. We Must Fetch The Pump With Dirty Water, If Clean Cannot Be Had.

The Lord Is The Peasant That Was, The Peasant Is The Lord That Shall Be.

Nothing Can Work Damage To Me Except Myself; The Harm That I Sustain I Carry About With Me And Never Am A Real Sufferer Except By My Own Fault.

Manners Are Very Communicable: Men Catch Them From Each Other.

Passion Rebuilds The World For The Youth. It Makes All Things Alive And Significant.

The Idealism Of Berkeley Is Only A Crude Statement Of The Idealism Of Jesus, And That Again Is A Crude Statement Of The Fact Thatall Nature Is The Rapid Efflux Of Goodness Executing And Organizing Itself.

The Nobler The Truth Or Sentiment, The Less Imports The Question Of Authorship.

Body Cannot Teach Wisdom; God Only.

What Is The End Of Human Life? It Is Not, Believe Me, The Chief End Of Man That He Should Make A Fortune And Beget Children Whose End Is Likewise To Make A Fortune, But It Is, In Few Words, That He Should Explore Himself.

Every Mind Has A New Compass, A New Direction Of Its Own, Differencing Its Genius And Aim From Every Other Mind.--we Call This Specialty The Bias Of Each Individual. And None Of Us Will Ever Accomplish Anything Excellent Or Commanding Except When He Listens To This Whisper Which Is Heard By Him Alone.

Only That Mind Draws Me Which I Cannot Read.

All Writing Comes By The Grace Of God.

The World Is The Ring Of His Spells, And The Play Of His Miracles.

Black Men Built The Railroads, Not Blue Eyes.

We Lie In The Lap Of Immense Intelligence.

As Long As Any Man Exists, There Is Some Need Of Him.

A Hero Is No Braver Than An Ordinary Man, But He Is Brave Five Minutes Longer.

The Americans Have No Faith, They Rely On The Power Of A Dollar; They Are Deaf To Sentiment.

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