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The New Statement Will Comprise The Skepticisms, As Well As The Faiths Of Society, And Out Of Unbeliefs A Creed Shall Be Formed. For, Skepticisms Are Not Gratuitous Or Lawless, But Are Limitations Of The Affirmative Statement, And The New Philosophy Must Take Them In, And Make Affirmations Outside Of Them, Just As Much As Must Include The Oldest Beliefs.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The New Statement Will

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

The New Statement Will Comprise The Skepticisms, As Well As The Faiths Of Society, And Out Of Unbeliefs A Creed Shall Be Formed. For, Skepticisms Are Not Gratuitous Or Lawless, But Are Limitations Of The Affirmative Statement, And The New Philosophy Must Take Them In, And Make Affirmations Outside Of Them, Just As Much As Must Include The Oldest Beliefs.

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A Man Must Be Clothed With Society, Or We Shall Feel A Certain Bareness And Poverty, As Of A Displaced And Unfurnished Member. He Is To Be Dressed In Arts And Institutions, As Well As In Body Garments. Now And Then A Man Exquisitely Made Can Live Alone, And Must; But Coop Up Most Men And You Undo Them.

Nature Is An Endless Combination And Repetition Of A Very Few Laws. She Hums The Old Well-known Air Through Innumerable Variations.

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

The Religions We Call False Were Once True.

Meek Young Men Grow Up In Libraries, Believing It Their Duty To Accept The Views Which Cicero, Which Locke, Which Bacon, Have Given, Forgetful That Cicero, Locke, And Bacon Were Only Young Men In Libraries, When They Wrote These Books.

Beware Of Jokes From Which We Go Away Hollow And Ashamed.

In My Dealing With My Child, My Latin And Greek, My Accomplishments And My Money Stead Me Nothing; But As Much Soul As I Have Avails. If I Am Wilful, He Sets His Will Against Mine, One For One, And Leaves Me, If I Please, The Degradation Of Beating Him By My Superiority Of Strength. But If I Renounce My Will, And Act For The Soul, Setting That Up As Umpire Between Us Two, Out Of His Young Eyes Looks The Same Soul; He Reveres And Loves With Me.

I Honor Health As The First Muse.

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

The Compensations Of Calamity Are Made Apparent To The Understanding Also, After Long Intervals Of Time.

Nothing Divine Dies. All Good Is Eternally Reproductive. The Beauty Of Nature Re-forms Itself In The Mind, And Not For Barren Contemplation, But For New Creation.

Men Are What Their Mothers Made Them.

My Life Is Superficial, Takes No Root In The Deep World; I Ask, When Shall I Die, And Be Relieved Of The Responsibility Of Seeinga Universe Which I Do Not Use? I Wish To Exchange This Flash-of-lightning Faith For Continuous Daylight, This Fever-glow For A Benign Climate.

The Highest Proof Of Civility Is That The Whole Public Action Of The State Is Directed On Securing The Greatest Good Of The Greatest Number.

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

Throb Thine With Nature's Throbbing Breast.

Nature Is Made To Conspire With Spirit To Emancipate Us.

Earth Proudly Wears The Parthenon As The Best Gem Upon Her Zone.

A Breath Of Will Blows Eternally Through The Universe Of Souls In The Direction Of Right And Necessity. It Is The Air Which All Intellects Inhale And Exhale, And It Is The Wind Which Blows The Worlds Into Order And Orbit.

Postpone Not Your Life.

Procrastination

We Do Not Know Today Whether We Are Busy Or Idle. In Times When We Thought Ourselves Indolent, We Have Afterwards Discovered That Much Was Accomplished, And Much Was Begun In Us.

Self Improvement

Greek Architecture Is The Flowering Of Geometry.

Wealth Brings With It Its Own Checks And Balances. The Basis Of Political Economy Is Noninterference. The Only Safe Rule Is Found In The Self-adjusting Meter Of Demand And Supply. Open The Doors Of Opportunity To Talent And Virtue And They Will Do Themselves Justice, And Property Will Not Be In Bad Hands. In A Free And Just Commonwealth, Property Rushes From The Idle And Imbecile To The Industrious, Brave And Persevering.

We Change Whether We Like It Or Not.

Perpetual Modernism Is The Measure Of Merit In Every Work Of Art.

Treat Your Friend As A Spectacle.

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

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

The Two Parties Which Divide The State, The Party Of Conservation And That Of Innovation, Are Very Old, And Have Disputed The Possession Of The World Ever Since It Was Made.

When Believers And Unbelievers Live In The Same Manner - I Distrust The Religion.

The Secret Of Drunkenness Is, That It Insulates Us In Thought, Whilst It Unites Us In Feeling.

Our Culture, Therefore, Must Not Omit The Arming Of The Man. Let Him Hear In Season, That He Is Born Into The State Of War, And That The Commonwealth And His Own Well-being Require That He Should Not Go Dancing In The Weeds Of Peace, But Warned, Self- Collected, And Neither Defying Nor Dreading The Thunder, Let Him Take Both Reputation And Life In His Hand, And, With Perfect Urbanity, Dare The Gibbet And The Mob By The Absolute Truth Of His Speech, And The Rectitude Of His Behaviour.

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

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.

The Quality Of The Thought Differences The Egyptian And The Roman, The Austrian And The American.

...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.

Nature Is Sanative, Refining, Elevating. How Cunningly She Hides Every Wrinkle Of Her Inconceivable Antiquity Under Roses, And Violets, And Morning Dew! Every Inch Of The Mountains Is Scarred By Unimaginable Convulsions, Yet The New Day Is Purple With The Bloom Of Youth And Love.

I Like Sayers Of No Better Than I Like Sayers Of Yes.

Again, The Great Number Of Cultivated Men Keep Each Other Up To A High Standard. The Habit Of Meeting Well-read And Knowing Men Teaches The Art Of Omission And Selection.

There Are Two Classes Of Poets - The Poets By Education And Practice, These We Respect; And Poets By Nature, These We Love.

I Admire Answers To Which No Answers Can Be Made.

I Am Not Much An Advocate For Traveling, And I Observe That Men Run Away To Other Countries Because They Are Not Good In Their Own, And Run Back To Their Own Because They Pass For Nothing In The New Places. For The Most Part, Only The Light Characters Travel. Who Are You That Have No Task To Keep You At Home?

Money, Which Represents The Prose Of Life, And Which Is Hardly Spoken Of In Parlors Without An Apology, Is, In Its Effects And Laws, As Beautiful As Roses.

The Only Money Of God Is God. He Pays Never With Any Thing Less, Or Any Thing Else.

Wherever The Truth Is Injured, Defend It.

What Is Originality? It Is Being One's Self, And Reporting Accurately What We See And Are.

A Scholar Does Not Wish To Be Always Pumping His Brains; He Wants Gossips.

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

One Man's Justice Is Another's Injustice; One Man's Beauty Another's Ugliness; One Man's Wisdom Anpther's Folly.

Give All To Love: Obey Thy Heart; Friends, Kindred, Days, Estate, Good Fame, Plans, Credit, And The Muse,- Nothing Refuse.

Action Is The Process Whereby What Is Not Fully Formed Passes Into Expressive Consciousness.

He Who Knows What Sweets And Virtues Are In The Ground, The Plants, The Waters, The Heavens, And How To Come At These Enchantments - Is The Rich And Royal Man.

A Man Will Be Eloquent If You Give Him Good Wine.

Life Is A Series Of Surprises.

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

Other World? There Is No Other World; Here Or Nowhere Is The Whole Fact.

No Orator Can Top The One Who Can Give Good Nicknames.

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

To Be Great, You Must Be Misunderstood

Nothing Astonishes Men So Much As Common Sense And Plain Dealing.

Slavery Is No Scholar, No Improver; It Does Not Love The Whistle Of The Railroad; It Does Not Love The Newspaper, The Mailbag, A College, A Book Or A Preacher Who Has The Absurd Whim Of Saying What He Thinks; It Does Not Increase The White Population; It Does Not Improve The Soil; Everything Goes To Decay.

Everything Is Prospective, And Man Is To Live Hereafter. That The World Is For His Education Is The Only Sane Solution Of The Enigma.

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.

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

Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty.

If You Criticize A Fine Genius, The Odds Are That You Are Out Of Your Reckoning, And, Instead Of The Poet, Are Censuring Your Owncaricature Of Him.

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

All I Know Is Reception; I Am And I Have: But I Do Not Get, And When I Fancied I Had Gotten Anything, I Found I Did Not.

I Hate Quotations. Tell Me What You Know.

A Man In The Wrong May More Easily Be Convinced Than One Half Right.

Men Achieve A Certain Greatness Unawares When Working To Another Aim.

The Beautiful Laws Of Time And Space, Once Dislocated By Our Inaptitude, Are Holes And Dens. If The Hive Be Disturbed By Rash And Stupid Hands, Instead Of Honey, It Will Yield Us Bees.

Genius Has Infused Itself Into Nature. It Indicates Itself By A Small Excess Of Good, A Small Balance In Brute Facts Always Favorable To The Side Of Reason.

In Like Manner The Effect Of Every Action Is Measured By The Depth Of The Sentiment From Which It Proceeds. The Great Man Knew Not That He Was Great. It Took A Century Or Two For That Fact To Appear. What He Did, He Did, He Did Because He Must; It Was The Most Natural Thing In The World, And Grew Out Of The Circumstances Of The Moment.

Youth Is Everywhere In Place.

Everything Is Made Of One Hidden Stuff.

Earth And Nature

Every Chair Should Be A Throne And Hold A King.

With Consistency A Great Soul Has Simply Nothing To Do. He May As Well Concern Himself With His Shadow On The Wall.

He That Can Heroically Endure Adversity Will Bear Prosperity With Equal Greatest Of The Soul; For The Mind That Cannot Be Dejected By The Former Is Not Likely To Be Transported Without The Latter.

Women See Better Than Men. Men See Lazily, If They Do Not Expect To Act. Women See Quite Without Any Wish To Act.

Every Spirit Builds Itself A House; And Beyond Its House A World; And Beyond Its World, A Heaven. Know Then, That The World Exists For You. For You Is The Phenomenon Perfect. What We Are, That Only Can We See. All That Adam Had, All That Caesar Could, You Have And Can Do. Adam Called His House, Heaven And Earth; Caesar Called His House, Rome; You Perhaps Call Yours, A Cobler's Trade; A Hundred Acres Of Ploughed Land; Or A Scholar's Garret. Yet Line For Line And Point For Point, Your Dominion Is As Great As Theirs, Though Without Fine Names. Build, Therefore, Your Own World.

My Life Is For Itself And Not For A Spectacle.

Doing Well Is A Result Of Doing Good.

In A Cabinet Of Natural History, We Become Sensible Of A Certain Occult Recognition And Sympathy In Regard To The Most Unwieldy And Eccentric Forms Of Beast, Fish, And Insect.

His Heart Was As Great As The World, But There Was No Room In It To Hold The Memory Of A Wrong.

What A Searching Preacher Of Self-command Is The Varying Phenomenon Of Health.

Life Is A Perpetual Instruction In Cause And Effect.

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

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

No Matter How You Seem To Fatten On A Crime, There Can Never Be Good For The Bee Which Is Bad For The Hive.

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

We Live In A New And Exceptional Age. America Is Another Word For Opportunity. Our Whole History Appears Like A Last Effort Of The Divine Providence In Behalf Of The Human Race; And A Literal, Slavish Following Of Precedents, As By A Justice Of The Peace, Is Not For Those Who At This Hour Lead The American Civilization.

To Different Minds, The Same World Is A Hell, And A Heaven Depending On Whether They Compare It To Something Better And So Feel Disappointed And Bitter Or Something Worse And So Feel Relieved And Grateful.

If You Follow The Suburban Fashion In Building A Sumptuous- Looking House For A Little Money, It Will Appear To All Eyes As A Cheap, Dear House.

The Stars Awaken A Certain Reverence, Because Though Always Present, They Are Inaccessible; But All Natural Objects Make A Kindred Impression, When The Mind Is Open To Their Influence. Nature Never Wears A Mean Appearance. Neither Does The Wisest Man Extort Her Secret, And Lose His Curiosity By Finding Out All Her Perfection. Nature Never Became A Toy To A Wise Spirit. The Flowers, The Animals, The Mountains, Reflected The Wisdom Of His Best Hour, As Much As They Had Delighted The Simplicity Of His Childhood.

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.

Nature Is A Tropical Swamp In Sunshine, On Whose Purlieus We Hear The Song Of Summer Birds, And See Prismatic Dewdrops, - But Her Interiors Are Terrific, Full Of Hydras And Crocodiles.

All The Great Speakers Were Bad Speakers At First.

Empirical Science Is Apt To Cloud The Sight, And, By The Very Knowledge Of Functions And Processes, To Bereave The Student Of Themanly Contemplation Of The Whole.

What You Are Shouts At Me So Loudly That I Can't Hear A Word You Say.

Why Should All Virtue Work In One And The Same Way? Why Should All Give Dollars? It Is Very Inconvenient To Us Country Folk, And We Do Not Think Any Good Will Come Of It. We Have Not Dollars; Merchants Have; Let Them Give Them. Farmers Will Give Corn; Poets Will Sing; Women Will Sew; Laborers Will Lend A Hand; The Children Will Bring Flowers.

All Natural Objects Make A Kindred Impression, When The Mind Is Open To Their Influence.

Great Men Are More Distinguished By Range And Extent Than By Originality.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage.

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.

I Am Ashamed To See What A Shallow Village Tale Our So-called History Is.

The Sanity Of Society Is A Balance Of A Thousand Insanity's.

The Intellectual Life May Be Kept Clean And Healthful, If Man Will Live The Life Of Nature, And Not Import Into His Mind Difficulties Which Are None Of His.

Cut These Words And They Would Bleed; They Are Vascular And Alive.

The Delicious Faces Of Children, The Beauty Of School-girls, "the Sweet Seriousness Of Sixteen," The Lofty Air Of Well-born, Well-bred Boys, The Passionate Histories In The Looks And Manners Of Youth And Early Manhood, And The Varied Power In All That Well-known Company That Escort Us Through Life,--we Know How These Forms Thrill, Paralyze, Provoke, Inspire, And Enlarge Us.

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.

The Faith That Stands On Authority Is Not Faith.

Reality Is A Sliding Door.

Life Is A Search After Power.

Other Men Are Lenses Through Which We Read Our Own Minds. Each Man Seeks Those Of Different Quality From His Own, And Such As Are Good Of Their Kind; That Is, He Seeks Other Men, And The Rest.

Our Desires Presage The Capacities Within Us; They Are Harbingers Of What We Shall Be Able To Accomplish. What We Can Do And Want To Do Is Projected In Our Imagination, Quite Outside Ourselves, And Into The Future. We Are Attracted To What Is Already Ours In Secret. Thus Passionate Anticipation Transforms What Is Indeed Possible Into Dreamt-for Reality.

The Best Bribe Which London Offers To-day To The Imagination, Is, That, In Such A Vast Variety Of People And Conditions, One Can Believe There Is Room For Persons Of Romantic Character To Exist, And That The Poet, The Mystic, And The Hero May Hope To Confront Their Counterparts.

True Wit Never Made Us Laugh.

Every Hero Becomes A Bore At Last.

To Be Is To Live With God.

Ever The Words Of The Gods Resound; But The Porches Of Man's Ear Seldom In This Low Life's Round Are Unsealed, That He May Hear.

Conversation Is Our Account Of Ourselves...conversation Is The Vent Of Character As Well As Thoughts...it Is The Laboratory Of The Student.

I Knew A Witty Physician Who Found Theology In The Biliary Duct, And Used To Affirm That If There Was A Disease In The Liver, The Man Became A Calvinist, And If That Organ Was Sound, He Became A Unitarian.

A Poet Is No Rattlebrain, Saying What Comes Uppermost, And, Because He Says Every Thing, Saying, At Last, Something Good; But A Heart In Unison With His Time And Country. There Is Nothing Whimsical Or Fantastic In His Production, But Sweet And Sad Earnest, Freighted With The Weightiest Convictions, And Pointed With The Most Determined Aim Which Any Man Or Class Knows Of In His Times.

A Man Is A God In Ruins.

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

The Believing We Do Something When We Do Nothing Is The First Illusion Of Tobacco.

There Is No True Orator Who Is Not A Hero.

The Efforts Which We Make To Escape From Our Destiny Only Serve To Lead Us Into It.

Love Is The Essence Of God.

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

Give Me Health And A Day, And I Will Make The Pomp Of Emperors Ridiculous.

I Think No Virtue Goes With Size;the Reason Of All Cowardiceis, That Men Are Overgrown,and, To Be Valiant, Must Come Downto The Titmouse Dimension.

We Read Often With As Much Talent As We Write.

Then, Though I Prize My Friends, I Cannot Afford To Talk With Them And Study Their Visions, Lest I Lose My Own. It Would Indeed Give Me A Certain Household Joy To Quit This Lofty Seeking, This Spiritual Astronomy, Or Search Of Stars, And Come Down To Warm Sympathies With You; But Then I Know Well I Shall Mourn Always The Vanishing Of My Mighty Gods.

Nothing Great Ever Happened Without Enthusiasm.

All Life Is A Nap. The More Naps You Take The Better.

Character Is Always Known. Thefts Never Enrich; Alms Never Impoverish; Murder Will Speak Out Of Stone Walls.

Native American

Man Is Physical As Well As Metaphysical, A Thing Of Shreds And Patches, Borrowed Unequally From Good And Bad Ancestors, And A Misfit From The Start.

Must We Always Talk For Victory, And Never Once For Truth, For Comfort, And Joy?

Comfort And Joy

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men. Every Man Is An Inlet To The Same And To All Of The Same. He That Is Once Admitted To The Right Of Reason Is Made A Freeman Of The Whole Estate. What Plato Has Thought, He May Think; What A Saint Has Felt, He May Feel; What At Any Time Has Befallen Any Man, He Can Understand. Who Hath Access To This Universal Mind Is A Party To All That Is Or Can Be Done, For This Is The Only And Sovereign Agent

The Passive Master Lent His Hand, To The Vast Soul Which O'er Him Planned.

The Oversoul Is Before Time, And Time, Father Of All Else, Is One Of His Children.

New York Is A Sucked Orange. All Conversation Is At An End, When We Have Discharged Ourselves Of A Dozen Personalities, Domestic Or Imported, Which Make Up Our American Existence.

We Are Not Free To Use Today, Or To Promise Tomorrow, Because We Are Already Mortgaged To Yesterday.

The Wings Of Time Are Black And White, Pied With Morning And With Night.

Black And White

An Original Sentence, A Step Forward, Is Worth More Than All The Censures.

We Must Hold A Man Amenable To Reason For The Choice Of His Daily Craft Or Profession. It Is Not An Excuse Any Longer For His Deeds That They Are The Custom Of His Trade. What Business Has He With An Evil Trade?

No Institution Will Be Better Than The Institutor.

In America And Europe, The Nomadism Is Of Trade And Curiosity.

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

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.

No Doubt, To A Man Of Sense, Travel Offers Advantages. As Many Languages As He Has, As Many Friends, As Many Arts And Trades, So Many Times Is He A Man. A Foreign Country Is A Point Of Comparison, Wherefrom To Judge His Own.

The Only True Gifts Are A Portion Of Yourself.

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

Many A Profound Genius, I Suppose, Who Fills The World With Fame Of His Exploding Renowned Errors, Is Yet Everyday Posed And Baffled By Trivial Questions At His Own Supper Table.

I Like My Boy With His Endless Sweet Soliloquies And Iterations And His Utter Inability To Conceive Why I Should Not Leave All My Nonsense, Business, And Writing And Come To Tie Up His Toy Horse, As If There Was Or Could Be Any End To Nature Beyond His Horse. And He Is Wiser Than We When [he] Threatens His Whole Threat "i Will Not Love You."

Every Man I Meet Is In Some Way My Superior...

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

There Is A Time In Every Man's Education When He Arrives At The Conviction That Envy Is Ignorance; That Imitation Is Suicide.

Eloquence Shows The Power And Possibility Of Man.

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

Enthusiasm Is One Of The Most Powerful Engines Of Success. When You Do A Thing, Do It With All Your Might.

Enthusiasm For Life

The Life Of Man Is The True Romance, Which When It Is Valiantly Conduced, Will Yield The Imagination A Higher Joy Than Any Fiction.

Any Work Looks Wonderful To Me Except The One Which I Can Do.

But Lest I Should Mislead Any When I Have My Own Head And Obey My Whims, Let Me Remind The Reader That I Am Only An Experimenter.do Not Set The Least Value On What I Do, Or The Least Discredit On What I Do Not, As If I Pretended To Settle Any Thing As True Or False. I Unsettle All Things. No Facts Are To Me Sacred; None Are Profane; I Simply Experiment, An Endless Seeker With No Past At My Back.

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

Do The Thing And You Will Have The Power.

In The Death Of My Son, Now More Than Two Years Ago, I Seem To Have Lost A Beautiful Estate,--no More. I Cannot Get It Nearer To Me.

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

Courage Charms Us, Because It Indicates That A Man Loves An Idea Better Than All Things In The World, That He Is Thinking Neither Of His Bed, Nor His Dinner, Nor His Money, But Will Venture All To Put In Act The Invisible Thought Of His Mind.

The Philanthropists Inquire Whether Transcendentalism Does Not Mean Sloth: They Had As Lief Hear That Their Friend Is Dead, As That He Is A Transcendentalist; For Then Is He Paralyzed, And Can Never Do Anything For Humanity.

An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought.

We Are Wiser Than We Know.

A Few Strong Instincts And A Few Plain Rules Suffice Us

We Shun The Rugged Battle Of Fate Where Strength Is Born.

Every Action Has An Ancestor Of A Thought.

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.

But Hospitality Must Be For Service, And Not For Show, Or It Pulls Down The Host. The Brave Soul Rates Itself Too High To Value Itself By The Splendor Of Its Table And Draperies. It Gives What It Hath, And All It Hath, But Its Own Majesty Can Lend A Better Grace To Bannocks And Fair Water Than Belong To City Feasts.

Our Expense Is Almost All For Conformity. It Is For Cake That We Run In Debt; 'tis Not The Intellect, Not The Heart, Not Beauty, Not Worship, That Costs So Much.

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.

A Man Is Usually More Careful Of His Money Than He Is Of His Principles.

Perhaps Love Is Only The Highest Symbol Of Friendship, As All Other Things Seem Symbols Of Love.

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

What The Tender And Poetic Youth Dreams To-day, And Conjures Up With Inarticulate Speech, Is To-morrow The Vociferated Result Of Public Opinion, And The Day After Is The Character Of Nations.

Let A Stoic Open The Resources Of Man, And Tell Men They Are Not Leaning Willows, But Can And Must Detach Themselves; That With The Exercise Of Self-trust, New Powers Shall Appear.

I Will Do Strongly Before The Sun And Moon Whatever Inly Rejoices Me And The Heart Apoints.

The Reason Of Idleness And Of Crime Is The Deferring Of Our Hopes.

A Man Is A Method, A Progressive Arrangement; A Selecting Principle, Gathering His Like To Him; Wherever He Goes.

All History Is The Decline Of War, Though The Slow Decline. All That Society Has Yet Gained Is Mitigation; The Doctrine Of The Right Of War Still Remains.

The World Is Young: The Former Great Men Call To Us Affectionately. We Too Must Write Bibles, To Unite Again The Heavens And The Earthly World.

General Ideas Are Essences. They Are Our Gods: They Round And Ennoble The Most Partial And Sordid Way Of Living.

No Facts To Me Are Sacred; None Are Profane.

Those Who Are Esteemed Umpires Of Taste, Are Often Persons Who Have Acquired Some Knowledge Of Admired Pictures Or Sculptures, Andhave An Inclination For Whatever Is Elegant; But If You Inquire Whether They Are Beautiful Souls, And Whether Their Own Acts Are Like Fair Pictures, You Learn That They Are Selfish And Sensual. Their Cultivation Is Local, As If You Should Rub A Log Of Dry Wood In One Spot To Produce Fire, All The Rest Remaining Cold.

It Is One Of The Biggest Blessing That You Can Be Stupid With Your True Friends And Behave Like You Shame To Do Elsewhere

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.

The Work Of Vegetation Begins First In The Irritability Of The Bark And Leaf-buds.

Every Man Has A Vocation. The Talent Is The Call.

Action Is With The Scholar Subordinate, But It Is Essential. Without It, He Is Not Yet Man. Without It, Thought Can Never Ripen Into Truth.

Society Is Always Taken By Surprise At Any New Example Of Common Sense.

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