Background Image

...

The Mystic Must Be Steadily Told,-all That You Say Is Just As True Without The Tedious Use Of That Symbol As With It. Let Us Have A Little Algebra, Instead Of This Trite Rhetoric,-universal Signs, Instead Of These Village Symbols,-and We Shall Both Be Gainers. The History Of Hierarchies Seems To Show That All Religious Error Consisted In Making The Symbol Too Stark And Solid, And Was At Last Nothing But An Excess Of The Organ Of Language.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Mystic Must Be

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

The Mystic Must Be Steadily Told,-all That You Say Is Just As True Without The Tedious Use Of That Symbol As With It. Let Us Have A Little Algebra, Instead Of This Trite Rhetoric,-universal Signs, Instead Of These Village Symbols,-and We Shall Both Be Gainers. The History Of Hierarchies Seems To Show That All Religious Error Consisted In Making The Symbol Too Stark And Solid, And Was At Last Nothing But An Excess Of The Organ Of Language.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Few Years Ago, The Liberal Churches Complained That The Calvinistic Church Denied To Them The Name Of Christian. I Think The Complaint Was Confession; A Religious Church Would Not Complain.

All Reform Aims, In Some One Particular, To Let The Soul Have Its Way Through Us; In Other Words, To Engage Us To Obey.

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.

He Who Loves Goodness Harbors Angels, Reveres Reverence, And Lives With God.

Everything In Nature Contains All The Powers Of Nature. Everything Is Made Of One Hidden Stuff.

Beauty Is The Mark God Sets Upon Virtue.

The Rule For Hospitality And Irish "help," Is, To Have The Same Dinner Every Day Throughout The Year. At Last, Mrs. O'shaughnessylearns To Cook It To A Nicety, The Host Learns To Carve It, And The Guests Are Well Served.

Today Is A King In Disguise.

We Take Care Of Our Health; We Lay Up Money; We Make Our Roof Tight, And Our Clothing Sufficient; But Who Provides Wisely That He Shall Not Be Wanting In The Best Property Of All, -friends?

Infancy Is The Perpetual Messiah, Which Comes Into The Arms Of Fallen Men, And Pleads With Them To Return To Paradise.

The Dearest Events Are Summer-rain.

The Reality Is More Excellent Than The Report.

Imagination Is A Very High Sort Of Seeing.

Do You See That Kitten Chasing So Prettily Her Own Tail? If You Could Look With Her Eyes, You Might See Her Surrounded With Hundreds Of Figures Performing Complex Dramas, With Tragic And Comic Issues, Long Conversations, Many Characters, Many Ups And Downs Of Fate.

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

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.

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

Cultivate An Attitude Of Gratitude, Of Giving And Forgiving. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

The Health Of The Eye Demands A Horizon.

There Is A Good Ear, In Some Men, That Draws Supplies To Virtue Out Of Very Indifferent Nutriment.

We Prize Books, And They Prize Them Most Who Are Themselves Wise.

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

Universities Are Of Course Hostile To Geniuses.

If You Believe In The Soul, Do Not Clutch At Sensual Sweetness Before It Is Ripe On The Slow Tree Of Cause And Effect.

For Nonconformity The World Will Whip You With Its Displeasure.

It Is Easy To Carp At Colleges, And The College, If He Will Wait For It, Will Have Its Own Turn. Genius Exists There Also, But Will Not Answer A Call Of A Committee Of The House Of Commons. It Is Rare, Precious, Eccentric, And Darkling.

The Soul Raised Over Passion Beholds Identity And Eternal Causation, Perceives The Self-existance Of Truth And Right, And Calms Itself With Knowing That All Things Go Well.

It Is A Luxury To Be Understood.

Physical Force Has No Value, Where There Is Nothing Else. Snow In Snow-banks, Fire In Volcanoes And Solfataras Is Cheap. The Luxury Of Ice Is In Tropical Countries, And Midsummer Days. The Luxury Of Fire Is, To Have A Little On Our Hearth; And Of Electricity, Not The Volleys Of The Charged Cloud, But The Manageable Stream On The Battery-wires. So Of Spirit, Or Energy; The Rests Or Remains Of It In The Civil And Moral Man, Are Worth All The Cannibals In The Pacific.

To Have Played And Laughed With Enthusiasm, And Sung With Exultation - This To To Have Succeeded.

The Maker Of A Sentence Launches Out Into The Infinite.

Creative Writing

But The Wise Know That Foolish Legislation Is A Rope Of Sand, Which Perishes In The Twisting; That The State Must Follow, And Notlead The Character And Progress Of The Citizen; The Strongest Usurper Is Quickly Got Rid Of; And They Only Who Build On Ideas, Build For Eternity; And That The Form Of Government Which Prevails, Is The Expression Of What Cultivation Exists In The Population Which Permits It.

I Consider Theology To Be The Rhetoric Of Morals.

Alas For America As I Must So Often Say, The Ungirt, The Diffuse, The Profuse, Procumbent, One Wide Ground Juniper, Out Of Which No Cedar, No Oak Will Rear Up A Mast To The Clouds! It All Runs To Leaves, To Suckers, To Tendrils, To Miscellany. The Air Is Loaded With Poppy, With Imbecility, With Dispersion, & Sloth.

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.

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.

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

Unless You Try To Do Something Beyond What You Have Already Mastered, You Will Never Grow.

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.

Our Poets Are Men Of Talents Who Sing, And Not The Children Of Music.

Ethics And Religion Differ Herein; That The One Is The System Of Human Duties Commencing From Man; The Other, From God. Religion Includes The Personality Of God; Ethics Does Not.

Once You Make A Decision, The Universe Conspires To Make It Happen.

It Is The Quality Of The Moment, Not The Number Of Days, Or Events, Or Of Actors, That Imports.

The Sun Illuminates Only The Eye Of The Man, But Shines Into The Eye And The Heart Of The Child.

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

Among The Map Makers Of Each Generation Are The Risk Takers, Those Who See The Opportunities, Seize The Moment And Expand Man's Vision Of The Future

Visions Of The Future

The Use Of Natural History Is To Give Us Aid In Supernatural History: The Use Of The Outer Creation, To Give Us Language For The Beings And Changes Of The Inward Creation.

Science Is Nothing But The Finding Of Analogy, Identity, In The Most Remote Parts.

What Can We See, Read, Acquire, But Ourselves. Take The Book, My Friend, And Read Your Eyes Out, You Will Never Find There What I Find.

The Civility Of No Race Can Be Perfect Whilst Another Race Is Degraded. It Is A Doctrine Alike Of The Oldest And Of The Newest Philosophy, That Man Is One, And That You Cannot Injure Any Member, Without A Sympathetic Injury To All The Members

Why Needs A Man Be Rich? Why Must He Have Horses, Fine Garments, Handsome Apartments, Access To Public Houses, And Places Of Amusement? Only For Want Of Thought.

You Must Let Go Of A Thing For A New One To Come To You.

Astronomy Taught Us Our Insignificance In Nature.

It Is Noticed, That The Consideration Of The Great Periods And Spaces Of Astronomy Induces A Dignity Of Mind, And An Indifferenceto Death.

Classics Which At Home Are Drowsily Read Have A Strange Charm In A Country Inn, Or In The Transom Of A Merchant Brig.

Lovers Should Guard Their Strangeness. If They Forgive Too Much, All Slides Into Confusion And Meanness.

It Is The Eye Which Makes The Horizon.

Man Is A Shrewd Inventor, And Is Ever Taking The Hint Of A New Machine From His Own Structure, Adapting Some Secret Of His Own Anatomy In Iron, Wood, And Leather, To Some Required Function In The Work Of The World.

Our Strength Grows Out Of Our Weakness.

I Hope In These Days We Have Heard The Last Of Conformity And Consistency. Let The Words Be Gazetted And Ridiculous Henceforward.instead Of The Gong For Dinner, Let Us Hear A Whistle From The Spartan Fife.

Men Wish To Be Saved From The Mischiefs Of Their Vices, But Not From Their Vices.

There Is No God Dare Wrong A Worm.

There Is No God

Polarity, Or Action And Reaction, We Meet In Every Part Of Nature; In Darkness And Light; In Heat And Cold; In The Ebb And Flow Of Water; In Male And Female; In The Equation Of Quantity And Quality; In The Fluids Of The Animal Body; In The Systole An

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

Our Religion Vulgarly Stands On Numbers Of Believers. Whenever The Appeal Is Made--no Matter How Indirectly--to Numbers, Proclamation Is Then And There Made, That Religion Is Not. He That Finds God A Sweet, Enveloping Presence, Who Shall Dare To Come In?

I Read The Other Day Some Verses Written By An Eminent Painter Which Were Original And Not Conventional. The Soul Always Hears An Admonition In Such Lines, Let The Subject Be What It May. The Sentiment They Instil Is Of More Value Than Any Thought They May Contain. 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.

A House Is Made With Walls And Beams; A Home Is Built With Love And Dreams.

As The Traveler Who Has Lost His Way, Throws His Reins On His Horse's Neck, And Trusts To The Instinct Of The Animal To Find His Road, So Must We Do With The Divine Animal Who Carries Us Through This World

The Good News Is That The Moment You Decide That What You Know Is More Important Than What You Have Been Taught To Believe, You Will Have Shifted Gears In Your Quest For Abundance. Success Comes From Within, Not From Without.

It Is So Wonderful To Our Neurologists That A Man Can See Without His Eyes, That It Does Not Occur To Them That Is Just As Wonderful That He Should See With Them; And That Is Ever The Difference Between The Wise And The Unwise: The Latter Wonders At What Is Unusual, The Wise Man Wonders At The Usual.

A Friend Is A Person With Whom I May Be Sincere. Before Him I May Think Aloud.

The Soul Lets No Man Go Without Some Visitations And Holy-days Of A Diviner Presence.

Happiness Is A Perfume You Cannot Pour On Others Without Getting Some On Yourself.

People Are Timid And Apologetic; They Are No Longer Upright; They Dare Not Say "i Think," "i Am," But Quote Some Saint Or Sage. They Are Ashamed Before The Blade Of Grass Or The Blowing Rose. These Roses Under My Window Make No Reference To Former Roses Or To Better Ones; They Are For What They Are; They Exist With God To-day.

The Life Of Man Is A Self-evolving Circle.

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

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

All The Mistakes I Make Arise From Forsaking My Own Station And Trying To See The Object From Another Person's Point Of View.

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

Exaggeration Is

The True Thrift Is Always To Spend On The Higher Plane; To Invest And Invest, With Keener Avarice, That He May Spend In Spiritualcreation, And Not In Augmenting Animal Existence. Nor Is The Man Enriched, In Repeating The Old Experiments Of Animal Sensation; Nor Unless Through New Powers And Ascending Pleasures He Knows Himself By The Actual Experience Of Higher Good To Be Already On The Way To The Highest.

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

It Is Never Too Late To Do Right.

We Estimate The Wisdom Of Nations By Seeing What They Did With Their Surplus Capital.

Look Out! Behind You!

History - A Biography Of A Few Stout And Earnest Persons

To Believe In Luck, If It Were Not A Solecism So To Use The Word Believe, Is Skepticism.

What Is Life But The Angle Of Vision? A Man Is Measured By The Angle At Which He Looks At Objects. What Is Life But What A Man Is Thinking Of All Day? This Is His Fate And His Employer. Knowing Is The Measure Of The Man. By How Much We Know, So We Are.

I Will Not Hide My Tastes Or Aversions. If You Are True, But Not In The Same Truth With Me, Cleave To Your Companions; I Will Seek My Own.

Hence, The Less Government We Have, The Better,--the Fewer Laws, And The Less Confided Power. The Antidote To This Abuse Of Formalgovernment, Is, The Influence Of Private Character, The Growth Of The Individual; The Appearance Of The Principal To Supersede The Proxy; The Appearance Of The Wise Man, Of Whom The Existing Government, Is, It Must Be Owned, But A Shabby Imitation.

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

A Good Deal Of Our Politics Is Physiological.

When You Were Born You Were Crying And Everyone Else Was Smiling. Live Your Life So At The End, Your're The One Who Is Smiling And Everyone Else Is Crying.

The Worthless And Offensive Members Of Society, Whose Existence Is A Social Pest, Invariably Think Themselves The Most Ill-used People Alive, And Never Get Over Their Astonishment At The Ingratitude And Selfishness Of Their Contemporaries.

When He Has Seen, That It Is Not His, Nor Any Man's, But It Is The Soul Which Made The World, And That It Is All Accessible To Him, He Will Know That He, As Its Minister, May Rightfully Hold All Things Subordinate And Answerable To It.

I Ought To Go Upright And Vital, And Speak The Rude Truth In All Ways.

In Our Fine Arts, Not Imitation, But Creation Is The Aim... The Details, The Prose Of Nature, He Should Omit, And Give Us Only The Spirit And Splendour.

A Good Indignation Makes An Excellent Speech.

Infancy Conforms To Nobody: All Conform To It, So That One Babe Commonly Makes Four Or Five Out Of The Adults Who Prattle And Play To It.

Every Man Passes His Life In The Search After Friendship.

The Squirrel Hoards Nuts And The Bee Gathers Honey, Without Knowing What They Do, And They Are Thus Provided For Without Selfishness Or Disgrace.

To Fill The Hour; That Is Happiness To Fill The Hour, And Leave No Crevice For A Repentance Or An Approval.

Truth Gathers Itself Spotless And Unhurt After All Our Surrenders And Concealments And Partisanship; Never Hurt By The Treachery Or Ruin Of Its Best Defenders, Whether Luther, Or William Penn, Or St. Paul.

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

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

Our Relations To Each Other Are Oblique And Casual.

Most Of The Classical Citations You Shall Hear Or Read In The Current Journals Or Speeches Were Not Drawn From The Originals, But From Previous Quotations In English Books.

I Am Ashamed To See What A Shallow Village Tale Our So-called History Is. How Many Times Must We Say Rome, And Paris, And Constantinople! What Does Rome Know Of Rat And Lizard? What Are Olympiads And Consulates To These Neighboring Systems Of Being? Nay, What Food Or Experience Or Succor Have They For The Esquimaux Seal-hunter, Or The Kanaka In His Canoe, For The Fisherman, The Stevedore, The Porter?

What Is Indispensable To Inspiration? ...sound Sleep And The Provocation Of A Good Book Or A Companion.

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

Every Mind Must Make Its Choice Between Truth And Repose. It Cannot Have Both.

No Rent-roll Nor Army-list Can Dignify Skulking And Dissimulation: And The First Point Of Courtesy Must Always Be Truth, As Really All The Forms Of Good-breeding Point That Way.

Virtue Alone Is Sweet Society, It Keeps The Key To All Heroic Hearts, And Opens You A Welcome In Them All.

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.

Great Hearts Steadily Send Forth The Secret Forces That Incessantly Draw Great Events.

Law Of Attraction

If, At Any Time, It Comes Into My Head, That A Present Is Due From Me To Somebody, I Am Puzzled What To Give, Until The Opportunity Is Gone.

Every Hero Becomes A Bore At Last.

The Years In Your Life Are Less Important Than The Life In Your Years.

The New Statement Is Always Hated By The Old, And, To Those Dwelling In The Old, Comes Like An Abyss Of Skepticism.

A Man Comes To Measure His Greatness By The Regrets, Envies And Hatreds Of His Competitors.

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.

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

The Beautiful Rests On The Foundations Of The Necessary.

The Moment The Doctrine Of The Immortality Is Separately Taught, Man Is Already Fallen. In The Flowing Of Love, In The Adoration Of Humility, There Is No Question Of Continuance. No Inspired Man Ever Asks This Question, Or Condescends To These Evidences. For The Soul Is True To Itself, And The Man In Whom It Is Shed Abroad Cannot Wander From The Present, Which Is Infinite, To A Future Which Would Be Finite.

Look Sharply After Your Own Thoughts. They Come Unlooked For, Like A New Bird Seen On Your Trees, And, If You Turn To Your Usual Task, Disappear; And You Shall Never Find That Perception Again; Never, I Say-but Perhaps Years, Ages, And I Know Not What Events And Worlds My Lie Between You And Its Return.

If You Put A Chain Around The Neck Of A Slave, The Other End Fastens Itself Around Your Own.

The Force Of Character Is Cumulative.

Foolish Consistencies Are The Hobgoblins Of Small Minds!

If The Whole Of History Is In One Man, It Is All To Be Explained From Individual Experience.

As The Eye Is The Best Composer, So Light Is The First Of Painters. There Is No Object So Foul That Intense Light Will Not Make Beautiful; And The Stimulus It Affords To The Sense, And A Sort Of Infinitude Which It Hath Like Space And Time, Make All Matter Gay.

With Thought, With The Ideal, Is Immortal Hilarity, The Rose Of Joy. Round It All The Muses Sing.

It Is Said, No Man Can Write But One Book; And If A Man Have A Defect, It Is Apt To Leave Its Impression On All His Performances.

Let Not The Author Eat Up The Man, So That He Shall Be All Balcony And No House.

Skepticism Is Unbelief In Cause And Effect. A Man Does Not See, That, As He Eats, So He Thinks: As He Deals, So He Is, And So He Appears; He Does Not See That His Son Is The Son Of His Thoughts And Of His Actions; That Fortunes Are Not Exceptions But Fruits; That Relation And Connection Are Not Somewhere And Sometimes, But Everywhere And Always; No Miscellany, No Exemption, No Anomaly,--but Method, And An Even Web; And What Comes Out, That Was Put In.

You Will Think Me Very Pedantic, Gentlemen, But Holiday Though It May Be, I Have Not The Smallest Interest In Any Holiday, Except As It Celebrates Real And Not Pretended Joys.

In Order For One To Learn The Important Lessons Of Life, One Must First Overcome A Fear Each Day.

Self-trust Is The First Secret Of Success.

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

The Affirmative Of Affirmatives... Is Love.

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.

No One Suspects The Days To Be Gods.

We Are Born Believing. A Man Bears Beliefs As A Tree Bears Apples.

The Farmer After Sacrificing Pleasure, Taste, Freedom, Thought, Love, To His Work, Turns Out Often A Bankrupt, Like The Merchant.this Result Might Well Seem Astounding. All This Drudgery, From Cockcrowing To Starlight, For All These Years, To End In Mortgages And The Auctioneer's Flag, And Removing From Bad To Worse. It Is Time To Have The Thing Looked Into, And With A Sifting Criticism Ascertained Who Is The Fool.

America Means Opportunity, Freedom, Power.

Life Is Very Narrow. Bring Any Club Or Company Of Intelligent Men Together Again After Ten Years, And If The Presence Of Some Penetrating And Calming Genius Could Dispose Them To Frankness, What A Confession Of Insanities Would Come Up!

No Reason Can Be Asked Or Given Why The Soul Seeks Beauty. Beauty, In Its Largest And Profoundest Sense, Is One Expression For The Universe. God Is The All-fair. Truth, And Goodness, And Beauty, Are But Different Faces Of The Same All.

Different Faces

If Thought Makes Free, So Does The Moral Sentiment. The Mixtures Of Spiritual Chemistry Refuse To Be Analyzed.

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

The Modernness Of All Good Books Seems To Give Men An Existence As Wide As Man.

Thought Dissolves The Material Universe By Carrying The Mind Up Into A Sphere Where All Is Plastic.

Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Every One Of Its Members. The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity. Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

Love Is Our Highest Word And The Synonym Of God.

Was Never Secret History But Birds Tell It In The Bowers.

It Is One Of The Blessings Of Old Friends That You Can Afford To Be Stupid With Them.

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

The Genius Of Reading And Of Gardening Are Antagonistic, Like Resinous And Vitreous Electricity. One Is Concentrative In Sparks And Shocks: The Other Is Diffuse Strength; So That Each Disqualifies Its Workman For The Other's Duties.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

All Conservatives Are Such From Personal Defects. They Have Been Effiminated By Position Of Nature, Born Halt And Blind, Through Luxury Of Their Parents, And Can Only, Like Invalids, Act On The Defensive.

Belief Consists In Accepting The Affirmations Of The Soul; Unbelief In Denying Them.

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.

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.

Truth Is Handsomer Than The Affectation Of Love. Your Goodness Must Have Some Edge To It, Else It Is None.

The Mind Does Not Create What It Perceives, Any More Than The Eye Creates The Rose.

The Cardinal Virtue Of A Teacher [is] To Protect The Pupil From His Own Influence.

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.

All Infractions Of Love And Equity In Our Social Relations Are Speedily Punished-by Fear...be Honest With A Man And You Have No Fear. Try To Deceive And The Relationship Deteriorates.

The Imitator Dooms Himself To Hopeless Mediocrity.

Some Will Always Be Above Others.

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.

To Be Is To Live With God.

I Am The Lover Of Uncontained And Immortal Beauty. In The Wilderness, I Find Something More Dear And Connate Than In Streets Or Villages. In The Tranquil Landscape, And Especially In The Distant Line Of The Horizon, Man Beholds Somewhat As Beautiful As His Own Nature.

Successful People Live Well, Laugh Often, And Love Much. They've Filled A Niche And Accomplished Tasks So As To Leave The World Better Than They Found It, While Looking For The Best In Others, And Giving The Best They Have.

But, If A Man Would Be Alone, Let Him Look At The Stars. The Rays That Come From These Heavenly Worlds, Will Separate Between Him And What He Touches. One Might Think The Atmosphere Was Made Transparent With This Design, To Give Man, In The Heavenly Bodies, The Perpetual Presence Of The Sublime... But Every Night Come Out These Envoys Of Beauty, And Light The Universe With Their Admonishing Smile.

Let The Realist Not Mind Appearances. Let Him Delegate To Others The Costly Courtesies And Decorations Of Social Life. The Virtuesare Economists, But Some Of The Vices Are Also. Thus, Next To Humility, I Have Noticed That Pride Is A Pretty Good Husband. A Good Pride Is, As I Reckon It, Worth From Five Hundred To Fifteen Hundred A Year.

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.

My Joy In Friends, Those Sacred People, Is My Consolation.

Nothing Can Bring You Happiness But Yourself Especially How You Choose To Think About Your Situation.

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

There Is Virtue Yet In The Hoe And The Spade, For Learned As Well As For Unlearned Hands. And Labor Is Everywhere Welcome; Alwayswe Are Invited To Work.

Presently We Pass To Some Other Object Which Rounds Itself Into A Whole As Did The First; For Example, A Well-laid Garden; And Nothing Seems Worth Doing But The Laying~out Of Gardens.

Every Great Man Is Unique.

Flowers Are The Earth Laughing.

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

It In Every Fair Face, Every Fair Sky, Every Fair Flower.

We Do Not Quite Forgive A Giver. The Hand That Feeds Us Is In Some Danger Of Being Bitten.

I Can Believe A Miracle Because I Can Raise My Own Arm. I Can Believe A Miracle Because I Can Remember. I Can Believe It Because I Can Speak And Be Understood By You.

The Powers Of The Soul Are Commensurate With Its Needs.

The Reward Of Commercial Civilization Is The Ability To Consume A Never-ending Array Of Products.there Are Limits Beyond Which Commodities Cannot Be Multiplied Without Preventing Their Consumers From Affirming Themselves Through The Exercise Of Their Personal Freedom.when Market Dependence Reaches A Certain Threshold It Deprives People Of Their Power To Live Creatively And To Act Autonomously. And Precisely Because This New Impotence Is So Deeply Experienced, It Is Expressed With Difficulty.

We Are Wiser Than We Know.

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.

Live In The Fields, And God Will Give You Lectures On Natural Philosophy Every Day.

The Virtue Of Books Is To Be Readable.

Difficulties Exist To Be Surmounted.

Our Prayers Are Prophets.

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

The Reverence For The Scriptures Is An Element Of Civilization, For Thus Has The History Of The World Been Preserved, And Is Preserved.

Everything Intercepts Us From Ourselves.

Children Are All Foreigners.

Truth Is The Summit Of Being; Justice Is The Application Of It To Affairs.

To Be Great, You Must Be Misunderstood

Truth Is Beautiful Within And Without, Forevermore.

Trending Author

Category