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The Land Is The Appointed Remedy For Whatever Is False And Fantastic In Our Culture. The Continent We Inhabit Is To Be Physic Andfood For Our Mind, As Well As Our Body. The Land, With Its Tranquilizing, Sanative Influences, Is To Repair The Errors Of A Scholastic And Traditional Education, And Bring Us To Just Relations With Men And Things.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Land Is The

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Land Is The Appointed Remedy For Whatever Is False And Fantastic In Our Culture. The Continent We Inhabit Is To Be Physic Andfood For Our Mind, As Well As Our Body. The Land, With Its Tranquilizing, Sanative Influences, Is To Repair The Errors Of A Scholastic And Traditional Education, And Bring Us To Just Relations With Men And Things.

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Our Health Is Our Sound Relation To External Objects; Our Sympathy With External Being.

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.

In A Tavern Everybody Puts On Airs Except The Landlord.

Human Condition

Had I But Written As Many Odes In Praise Of Muhammad And Ali As I Have Composed For King Mahmud, They Would Have Showered A Hundred Blessings On Me.

The Charm Of The Best Courages Is That They Are Inventions, Inspirations, Flashes Of Genius.

Flowers Are The Earth Laughing.

The Civilized Man Has Built A Coach, But Has Lost The Use Of His Feet.

In Old Persons, When Thus Fully Expressed, We Often Observe A Fair, Plump, Perennial Waxen Complexion, Which Indicates That All The Ferment Of Earlier Days Has Subsided Into Serenity Of Thought And Behavior.

The Mark Of A Man Of The World Is Absence Of Pretension.

He Who Loves The Bristle Of Bayonets Only Sees In The Glitter What Beforehand He Feels In His Heart. It Is Avarice And Hatred; It Is That Quivering Lip, That Cold, Hating Eye, Which Built Magazines And Powder-houses.

The Thing Done Avails, And Not What Is Said About It.

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

As Picture Teaches The Colouring, So Sculpture The Anatomy Of Form.

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.

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

Death Comes To All, But Great Achievements Build A Monument Which Shall Endure Until The Sun Grows Cold.

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

Life Consists In What A Man Is Thinking Of All Day.

It Is Commonly Observed That A Sudden Wealth, Like A Prize Drawn In A Lottery Or A Large Bequest To A Poor Family, Does Not Permanently Enrich. They Have Served No Apprenticeship To Wealth, And With The Rapid Wealth Come Rapid Claims Which They Do Not Know How To Deny, And The Treasure Is Quickly Dissipated.

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.

Genius Is Intellect Constructive.

Creative Force, Like A Musical Composer, Goes On Unweariedly Repeating A Simple Air Or Theme, Now High, Now Low, In Solo, In Chorus, Ten Thousand Times Reverberated, Till It Fills Earth And Heaven With The Chant.

Let Us Be Poised, Wise And Our Own Today.

I Like People Who Can Do Things

In The True Mythology, Love Is An Immortal Child, And Beauty Leads Him As A Guide; Nor Can We Express A Deeper Sense Than When We Say, Beauty Is The Pilot Of The Young Soul.

Henceforth, Please God, Forever I Forego The Yolk Of Men's Opinions. I Will Be Light-hearted As A Bird And Live With God. I Find Him In The Bottom Of My Heart, And I Hear Continually His Voice Therein.

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

He Cannot Be Happy And Strong Until He Too Lives With Nature In The Present, Above Time.

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

As Long As Our People Quote English Standards They Dwarf Their Own Proportions.

Beauty Brings Its Own Fancy Price, For All That A Man Hath Will He Give For His Love.

It The Proof Of High Culture To Say The Greatest Matters In The Simplest Way.

Of Course, Money Will Do After Its Kind, And Will Steadily Work To Unspiritualize And Unchurch The People To Whom It Was Bequeathed.

The Adventitious Beauty Of Poetry May Be Felt In The Greater Delight With A Verse Given In A Happy Quotation Than In The Poem.

Men Are Not Philosophers, But Are Rather Very Foolish Children, Who, By Reason Of Their Partiality, See Everything In The Most Absurd Manner, And Are The Victims At All Times Of The Nearest Object. There Is Even No Philosopher Who Is A Philosopher At All Times. Our Experience, Our Perception Is Conditioned By The Need To Acquire In Parts And In Succession, That Is, With Every Truth A Certain Falsehood.

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

Every Known Fact In Natural Science Was Divined By The Presentiment Of Somebody, Before It Was Actually Verified.

Native American

The Progress Of Religion Is Steadily To Its Identity With Morals. Strength Enters Just As Much As The Moral Element Prevails.

Judge Of Your Natural Character By What You Do In Your Dreams.

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.

A Philosopher Must Be More Than A Philosopher.

I Hate Quotations. Tell Me What You Know.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose.

...in The Wilderness, I Find Something More Dear And Connate Than In The Streets Or Villages...in The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

The Spirit Of Our American Radicalism Is Destructive And Aimless; It Is Not Loving; It Has No Ulterior And Divine Ends; But Is Destructive Only Out Of Hatred And Selfishness.

Let A Man Then Know His Worth And Keep Things Under His Feet.

Character Is Higher Than Intellect... A Great Soul Will Be Strong To Live, As Well As Strong To Think.

Our Distrust Is Very Expensive.

Every Day Brings A Ship, Every Ship Brings A Word; Well For Those Who Have No Fear, Looking Seaward Well Assured That The Word The Vessel Brings Is The Word They Wish To Hear.

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

Every Opinion Reacts On Him Who Utters It.

Fashion, Though In A Strange Way, Represents All Manly Virtue. It Is Virtue Gone To Seed: It Is A Kind Of Posthumous Honor. It Does Not Often Caress The Great, But The Children Of The Great: It Is A Hall Of The Past.

To Aim To Convert A Man By Miracles Is A Profanation Of The Soul. A True Conversion, A True Christ, Is Now, As Always, To Be Madeby The Reception Of Beautiful Sentiments.

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

What Art Can Paint Or Gild Any Object In After Life With The Glow Which Nature Gives To The First Baubles Of Childhood? St. Peter's Cannot Have The Magical Power Over Us That The Red And Gold Covers Of Our First Picture-book Possessed.

Style Is Only The Frame To Hold Your Thoughts. It Is Like The Sash Of A Window; If Heavy, It Will Obscure The Light.

What Has Been Done In The World - The Works Of Genius - Cost Nothing. There Is No Painful Effort, But It Is The Spontaneous Flowing Of The Thought. Shakespeare Made His Hamlet As A Bird Weaves Its Nest.

Good As Is Discourse, Silence Is Better And Shames It.

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.

Intellect Is Void Of Affection And Sees An Object As It Stands In The Light Of Science, Cool And Disengaged. The Intellect Goes Out Of The Individual, Floats Over Its Own Personality, And Regards It As A Fact, And Not As I And Mine.

The Wise Skeptic Does Not Teach Doubt But How] To Look For The Permanent In The Mutable And Fleeting.

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.

Deep Insight Will Always, Like Nature, Ultimate Its Thought In A Thing.

Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth.

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

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.

Character Is That Which Can Do Without Success.

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

For No Man Can Write Anything Who Does Not Think That What He Writes Is, For The Time, The History Of The World.

We Thirst For Approbation, Yet Cannot Forgive The Approver.

This Book Of Montaigne The World Has Endorsed By Translating It Into All Tongues.

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.

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

I Think That The Heroism Which At This Day Would Make On Us The Impression Of Epaminondas And Phocion Must Be That Of A Domestic Conqueror. He Who Shall Bravely And Gracefully Subdue This Gorgon Of Convention And Fashion, And Show Men How To Lead A Clean, Handsome And Heroic Life Amid The Beggarly Elements Of Our Cities And Villages; Whoso Shall Teach Me How To Eat My Meat And Take My Repose And Deal With Men, Without Any Shame Following, Will Restore The Life Of Man To Splendor, And Make His Own Name Dear To All History.

Power Resides In The Moment Of Transition From A Past To A New State.

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.

The Word Unto The Prophet Spoken Was Writ On Tablets Yet Unbroken: The Word By Seers Or Sibyls Told, In Groves Of Oak Or Fanes Of Gold, Still Floats Upon The Morning Wind, Still Whispers To The Willing Mind.

Research Is Not Seeing What Others Do Not See, It Is Seeing The Same Thing As Other People And Thinking What They Do Not.

You Will Always Find Those Who Think They Know What Is Your Duty Better Than You Know It.

The Multitude Of False Churches Accredits The True Religion.

Among The Multitude Of Scholars And Authors, We Feel No Hallowing Presence; We Are Sensible Of A Knack And Skill Rather Than Of Inspiration; They Have A Light, And Know Not Whence It Comes, And Call It Their Own; Their Talent Is Some Exaggerated Faculty, Some Overgrown Member, So That Their Strength Is A Disease.

Two May Talk And One May Hear, But Three Cannot Take Part In A Conversation Of The Most Sincere And Searching Sort.

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

All Is A Riddle, And The Key To A Riddle...is Another Riddle.

The Riddle Of The Age Has For Each A Private Solution.

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

All Loss, All Pain, Is Particular; The Universe Remains To The Heart Unhurt.

We Write From Aspiration And Antagonism, As Well As From Experience. We Paint Those Qualities Which We Do Not Posses.

A Strenuous Soul Hates Cheap Success.

It Seems To Be A Rule Of Wisdom Never To Rely On Your Memory Alone, Scarcely Even In Acts Of Pure Memory, But To Bring The Past For Judgment Into The Thousand-eyed Present, And Live Ever In A New Day.

Eloquence Shows The Power And Possibility Of Man.

There Is Some Awe Mixed With The Joy Of Our Surprise, When This Poet, Who Lived In Some Past World, Two Or Three Hundred Years Ago, Says That Which Lies Close To My Own Soul, That Which I Also Had Wellnigh Thought And Said.

The Genius Of Life Is Friendly To The Noble, And, In The Dark, Brings Them Friends From Far.

You Must Pay For Conformity. All Goes Well As Long As You Run With Conformists. But You, Who Are Honest Men In Other Particulars, Know That There Is Alive Somewhere A Man Whose Honesty Reaches To This Point Also, That He Shall Not Kneel To False Gods, And, On The Day When You Meet Him, You Sink Into The Class Of Counterfeits.

The Solitary Knows The Essence Of The Thought, The Scholar In Society Only Its Fair Face.

Every Ship That Comes To America Got Its Chart From Columbus.

Concentration Is The Secret Of Strength In Politics, In War, In Trade, In Short In All Management Of Human Affairs.

Focus And Concentration

An Ounce Of Action Is Worth A Ton Of Theory.

The Cold, Inconsiderate Of Persons, Tingles Your Blood, Benumbs Your Feet, Freezes A Man Like An Apple.

The Angels Are So Enamored Of The Language That Is Spoken In Heaven That They Will Not Distort Their Lips With The Hissing And Unmusical Dialects Of Men, But Speak Their Own, Whether Their Be Any Who Understand It Or Not.

The Italians Are Fond Of Red Clothes, Peacock Plumes, And Embroidery; And I Remember One Rainy Morning In The City Of Palermo, The Street Was Ablaze With Scarlet Umbrellas.

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.

Friendship Requires More Time Than Poor Busy Men Can Usually Command.

The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most. The Power Which The Sea Requires In The Sailor Makes A Man Of Him Very Fast, And The Change Of Shores And Population Clears His Head Of Much Nonsense Of His Wigwam.

The God Who Made New Hampshire Taunted The Lofty Land With Little Men.

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

Nature Is Thoroughly Mediate. It Is Made To Serve. It Receives The Dominion Of Man As Meekly As The Ass On Which The Saviour Rode.it Offers All Its Kingdoms To Man As The Raw Material Which He May Mould Into What Is Useful. Man Is Never Weary Of Working It Up.

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

I Will Not Live Out Of Me I Will Not See With Others' Eyes My Good Is Good, My Evil Ill I Would Be Free.

A Nation Never Falls But By Suicide.

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

The Height Of The Pinnacle Is Determined By The Breadth Of The Base.

Conformity Is The Ape Of Harmony.

Pines A Thousand Years Old. Every Year They Must Go Farther For Them: They Recede, Like Beavers And Indians, Before The White Man.

Test Of The Poet Is Knowledge Of Love, For Eros Is Older Than Saturn Or Jove; Never Was Poet, Of Late Or Of Yore, Who Was Not Tremulous With Love-lore.

Life Loiters At The Book's First Page,-- Ah! Could We Turn The Leaf.

A Sturdy Lad From New Hampshire Or Vermont Who In Turn Tries All The Professions, Who Teams It, Farms It, Peddles, Keeps A School,preaches, Edits A Newspaper, Goes To Congress, Buys A Township, And So Forth, In Successive Years, And Always Like A Cat Falls On His Feet, Is Worth A Hundred Of These City Dolls. He Walks Abreast With His Days And Feels No Shame In Not "studying A Profession," For He Does Not Postpone His Life, But Lives Already.

Excellence Is The New Forever.

That Which We Do Not Believe, We Cannot Adequately Say; Even Though We May Repeat The Words Ever So Often.

The Solid, Solid Universe Is Pervious To Love; With Bandaged Eyes He Never Errs, Around, Below, Above. His Blinding Light He Flingeth White On God's And Satan's Brood, And Reconciles By Mystic Wiles The Evil And The Good.

The Right Merchant Is One Who Has The Just Average Of Faculties We Call Common Sense; A Man Of A Strong Affinity For Facts, Who Makes Up His Decision On What He Has Seen. He Is Thoroughly Persuaded Of The Truths Of Arithmetic. There Is Always A Reason, In The Man, For His Good Or Bad Fortune In Making Money. Men Talk As If There Were Some Magic About This. He Knows That All Goes On The Old Road, Pound For Pound, Cent For Cent - For Every Effect A Perfect Cause - And That Good Luck Is Another Name For Tenacity Of Purpose.

We Do Not Count A Man's Years Until He Has Nothing Else To Count.

There Are Twenty Ways Of Going To A Point, And One Is The Shortest; But Set Out At Once On One. A Man Who Has That Presence Of Mind Which Can Bring To Him On The Instant All He Knows, Is Worth For Action A Dozen Men Who Know As Much, But Can Only Bring It To Light Slowly.

Presence Of Mind

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

You Have Just Dined, And However Scrupulously The Slaughterhouse Is Concealed In The Graceful Distance Of Miles, There Is Complicity.

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

I Consider Theology To Be The Rhetoric Of Morals.

The Profoundest Thought Or Passion Sleeps As In A Mine, Until An Equal Mind And Heart Finds And Publishes It.

We Are Not Very Much To Blame For Our Bad Marriages. We Live Amid Hallucinations, And Especial Trap Is Laid To Trip Up Our Feet With, And All Are Tripped Up First Or Last. But The Mighty Mother, Who Had Been So Sly With Us, As If She Felt She Owed Us Some Indemnity, Insinuates Into The Pandora Box Of Marriage Some Deep And Serious Benefits, And Some Great Joys.

Flowers So Strictly Belong To Youth, That We Adult Men Soon Come To Feel, That Their Beautiful Generations Concern Not Us: We Havehad Our Day; Now Let The Children Have Theirs. The Flowers Jilt Us, And We Are Old Bachelors With Our Ridiculous Tenderness.

It Sometimes Occurs That Memory Has A Personality Of Its Own And Volunteers Or Refuses Its Information At Its Will, Not At Mine.

Let The Soul Be Assured That Somewhere In The Universe It Should Rejoin Its Friend, And It Would Be Content And Cheerful Alone For A Thousand Years.

Throb Thine With Nature's Throbbing Breast.

For Everything You Have Missed, You Have Gained Something Else, And For Everything You Gain, You Lose Something Else.

The Times Are The Masquerade Of The Eternities; Trivial To The Dull, Tokens Of Noble And Majestic Agents To The Wise; The Receptacle In Which The Past Leaves Its History; The Quarry Out Of Which The Genius Of Today Is Building Up The Future.

Do Not Speak Of God Much. After A Very Little Conversation On The Highest Nature, Thought Deserts Us And We Run Into Formalism.

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

These Times Of Ours Are Series And Full Of Calamity, But All Times Are Essentially Alike. As Soon As There Is Life There Is Danger.

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?

In Strict Science, All Persons Underlie The Same Condition Of An Infinite Remoteness. Shall We Fear To Cool Our Love By Mining Forthe Metaphysical Foundation Of This Elysian Temple? Shall I Not Be As Real As The Things I See? If I Am, I Shall Not Fear To Know Them For What They Are.

There Are People Who Have An Appetite For Grief; Pleasure Is Not Strong Enough And They Crave Pain. They Have Mithridatic Stomachs Which Must Be Fed On Poisoned Bread, Natures So Doomed That No Prosperity Can Sooth Their Ragged And Dishevelled Desolation.

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

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

The First Wealth Is Health.

Open The Doors Of Opportunity To Talent And Virtue And They Will Do Themselves Justice, And Property Will Not Be In Bad Hands.

The State Of Society Is One In Which The Members Have Suffered Amputation From The Trunk, And Strut About So Many Walking Monsters, - A Good Finger, A Neck, A Stomach, An Elbow, But Never A Man. Man Is Thus Metamorphosed Into A Thing, Into Many Things. The Planter, Who Is Man Sent Out Into The Field To Gather Food, Is Seldom Cheered By Any Idea Of The True Dignity Of His Ministry. He Sees His Bushel And His Cart, And Nothing Beyond, And Sinks Into The Farmer, Instead Of Man On The Farm.

History Is Full, Down To This Day, Of The Imbecility Of Kings And Governors. They Are A Class Of Persons Much To Be Pitied, For They Know Not What They Should Do.

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

There Are Two Laws Discretenot Reconciled,law For Man, And Law For Thing.

I See It Only That Thyself Is Here, And Art And Nature, Hope And Fate, Friends, Angels And The Supreme Being Shall Not Be Absent From The Chamber Where Thou Sittest.

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

Conservatism Makes No Poetry, Breathes No Prayer, Has No Invention; It Is All Memory. Reform Has No Gratitude, No Prudence, No Husbandry.

The World Is His Who Has Money To Go Over It.

The Good Lawyer Is Not The Man Who Has An Eye To Every Side And Angle Of Contingency, And Qualifies All His Qualifications, But Who Throws Himself On Your Part So Heartily, That He Can Get You Out Of A Scrape.

The Reason Why Men Do Not Obey Us, Is Because They See The Mud At The Bottom Of Our Eye.

No Picture Of Life Can Have Any Veracity That Does Not Admit The Odious Facts. A Man's Power Is Hooped In By A Necessity, Which, By Many Experiments, He Touches On Every Side, Until He Learns Its Arc.

We Learn Geology The Morning After The Earthquake, On Ghastly Diagrams Of Cloven Mountains, Upheaved Plains, And The Dry Bed Of The Sea.

God Hid The Whole World In Thy Heart.

A Man Known To Us Only As A Celebrity In Politics Or In Trade, Gains Largely In Our Esteem If We Discover That He Has Some Intellectual Taste Or Skill.

Heaven Often Protects Valuable Souls Charged With Great Secrets, Great Ideas, By Long Shutting Them Up With Their Own Thoughts.

Nothing Is More Disgusting Than The Crowing About Liberty By Slaves, As Most Men Are, And The Flippant Mistaking For Freedom Of Some Paper Preamble Like A Declaration Of Independence, Or The Statute Right To Vote, By Those Who Have Never Dared To Think Or To Act.

We Never Touch But At Points.

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

We Dress Our Garden, Eat Our Dinners, Discuss The Household With Our Wives, And These Things Make No Impression, Are Forgotten Next Week; But In The Solitude To Which Every Man Is Always Returning, He Has A Sanity And Revelations, Which In His Passage Into New Worlds He Will Carry With Him. Never Mind The Ridicule, Never Mind The Defeat: Up Again, Old Heart! — It Seems To Say, — There Is Victory Yet For All Justice; And The True Romance Which The World Exists To Realize, Will Be The Transformation Of Genius Into Practical Power.

Intemperance Is The Only Vulgarity.

Intellectual Tasting Of Life Will Not Supersede Muscular Activity.

You Cannot Do A Kindness Too Soon, For You Never Know How Soon It Will Be Too Late.

Don't Be A Cynic And Disconsolate Preacher. Don't Bewail And Moan. Omit The Negative Propositions. Challenge Us With Incessant Affirmatives.

The Death Of A Dear Friend, Wife, Brother, Lover, Which Seemed Nothing But Privation, Somewhat Later Assumes The Aspect Of A Guide Or Genius; For It Commonly Operates Revolutions In Our Way Of Life, Terminates An Epoch Of Infancy Or Of Youth Which Was Waiting To Be Closed, Breaks Up A Wonted Occupation, Or A Household, Or Style Of Living, And Allows The Formation Of New Ones More Friendly To The Growth Of Character.

Philanthropies And Charities Have A Certain Air Of Quackery.

But I Cannot Recite, Even Thus Rudely, Laws Of The Intellect, Without Remembering That Lofty And Sequestered Class Of Men Who Have Been Its Prophets And Oracles, The High-priesthood Of The Pure Reason, The Trismegisti, The Expounders Of The Principles Of Thought From Age To Age.

The Have A Good Friend Is One Of The Greatest Delights Of Life.

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

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

Things Are Pretty, Graceful, Rich, Elegant, Handsome, But, Until They Speak To The Imagination, Not Yet Beautiful.

The Instincts Of The Ant Are Very Unimportant, Considered As The Ants; But The Moment A Ray Of Relation Is Seen To Be A Monitor, A Little Body With A Mighty Heart, Then All Its Habits, Even That Said To Be Recently Observed, That It Never Sleeps, Become Sublime.

And Last Of All, High Over Thought, In The World Of Morals, Fate Appears As Vindicator, Levelling The High, Lifting The Low, Requiring Justice In Man, And Always Striking Soon Or Late When Justice Is Not Done. What Is Useful Will Last, What Is Hurtful Will Sink.

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.

Cultivate The Habit Of Being Grateful... And ...give Thanks Continuously.

Perpetual Modernness Is The Measure Of Merit, In Every Work Of Art; Since The Author Of It Was Not Misled By Anything Short- Livedor Local, But Abode By Real And Abiding Traits.

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

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year.

Why Should We Not Have A First-hand And Immediate Experience Of God?

He Who Is In Love Is Wise And Is Becoming Wiser, Sees Newly Every Time He Looks At The Object Beloved, Drawing From It With His Eyes And His Mind Those Virtues Which It Possesses.

We Surround Ourselves With The True Image Of Ourselves.

The Imaginative Faculty Of The Soul Must Be Fed With Objects Immense And Eternal.

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

But The Man And Woman Of Seventy Assume To Know All, They Have Outlived Their Hope, They Renounce Aspiration, Accept The Actual For The Necessary And Talk Down To The Young. Let Them Then Become Organs Of The Holy Ghost; Let Them Be Lovers; Let Them Behold Truth; And Their Eyes Are Uplifted, Their Wrinkles Smoothed, They Are Perfumed Again With Hope And Power.

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken.

Fractures Well Cured Make Us More Strong.

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

Saving The Earth

Why Should We Grope Among The Dry Bones Of The Past? The Sun Shines Today Also.

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.

Calmness Is Always Godlike.

Man Is The End Of Nature; Nothing So Easily Organizes Itself In Every Part Of The Universe As He; No Moss, No Lichen Is So Easilyborn; And He Takes Along With Him And Puts Out From Himself The Whole Apparatus Of Society And Condition Extempore, As An Army Encamps In A Desert, And Where All Was Just Now Blowing Sand, Creates A White City In An Hour, A Government, A Market, A Place For Feasting, For Conversation, And For Love.

A Strong Person Makes The Law And Custom Null Before His Own Will.

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

He That Writes To Himself Writes To An Eternal Public. That Statement Only Is Fit To Be Made Public, Which You Have Come At In Attempting To Satisfy Your Own Curiosity.

It Is The Delight Of Vulgar Talent To Dazzle And To Bind The Beholder. But True Genius Seeks To Defend Us From Itself. True Geniuswill Not Impoverish, But Will Liberate, And Add New Sense. If A Wise Man Should Appear In Our Village, He Would Create, In Those Who Conversed With Him, A New Consciousness Of Wealth, By Opening Their Eyes To Unobserved Advantages; He Would Establish A Sense Of Immovable Equality, Calm Us With Assurances That We Could Not Be Cheated; As Every One Would Discern The Checks And Guarantees Of Condition.

We Ought To Be Cautious In Taking Even The Best Ascertained Opinions And Practices Of The Primitive Church For Our Own. If It Could Be Satisfactorily Shown That They Esteemed It Authorized And Transmitted Forever, That Does Not Settle The Question For Us. We Know How Inveterately They Were Attached To Their Jewish Prejudices, And How Often Even The Influence Of Christ Failed To Enlarge Their Views. On Every Other Subject Succeeding Times Have Learned To Form A Judgement More In Accordance With The Spirit Of Christianity Than Was The Practice Of The Early Ages.

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Johann Kaspar Lavater

Lewis B. Smedes

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