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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Only Sin Is

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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If The Stars Should Appear But One Night Every Thousand Years How Man Would Marvel And Stare.

God Builds His Temple In The Heart On The Ruins Of Churches And Religions.

To The Attentive Eye, Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty, And In The Same Fields, It Beholds, Every Hour, A Picture Which Was Never Seen Before, And Which Shall Never Be Seen Again.

What You Persist In Doing Gets Easier. The Task Hasn't Changed, But Your Ability To Do It Has Increased.

Eating Disorder

Courage Is Temperamental, Scientific, Ideal.

Perception Is A Mirror Not A Fact. And What I Look On Is My State Of Mind, Reflected Outward.

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

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.

Genius Is Always Sufficiently The Enemy Of Genius By Over Influence. The Literature Of Every Nation Bear Me Witness. The English Dramatic Poets Have Shakspearized Now For Two Hundred Years.

When Half-gods Go The Gods Arrive.

Every Violation Of Truth Is Not Only A Sort Of Suicide In The Liar, But Is A Stab At The Health Of Human Society.

To Be A Man Is To Be A Nonconformist.

Every Ship Is A Romantic Object, Except That We Sail In. Embark, And The Romance Quits Our Vessel, And Hangs On Every Other Sail In The Horizon.

How Much We Forgive To Those Who Yield Us The Rare Spectacle Of Heroic Manners! We Will Pardon Them The Want Of Books, Or Arts, And Even Of Gentler Virtues. How Tenaciously We Remember Them!

Truth Has Already Ceased To Be Itself If Polemically Said.

A Man Must Consider What A Rich Realm He Abdicates When He Becomes A Conformist.

Being Different

Some Men Love Only To Talk Where They Are Masters. They Like To Go To School-girls, Or To Boys, Or Into The Shops Where The Sauntering People Gladly Lend An Ear.

Commit A Crime, And The Earth Is Made Of Glass.

Every Great And Commanding Movement In The Annals Of The World Is Due To The Triumph Of Enthusiasm. Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without It

Enthusiasm For Life

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

Take Egotism Out And You Would Castrate The Benefactors.

Poetry Makes Its Own Pertinence, And A Single Stanza Outweighs A Book Of Prose.

As I Walked In The Woods I Felt What I Often Feel That Nothing Can Befall Me In Life, No Calamity, No Disgrace (leaving Me My Eyes) To Which Nature Will Not Offer A Sweet Consolation. Standing On The Bare Ground With My Head Bathed By The Blithe Air, & Uplifted Into The Infinite Space, I Become Happy In My Universal Relations. The Name Of The Nearest Friend Sounds Then Foreign & Accidental. I Am The Heir Of Uncontained Beauty And Power.

A Man Passes For That He Is Worth. What He Is Engraves Itself On His Face, On His Form, On His Fortunes, In Letters Of Light. Concealment Avails Him Nothing; Boasting Nothing. There Is Confession In The Glances Of Our Eyes; In Our Smiles; In Salutations; And The Grasp Of Hands.

Sleep Is Not, Death Is Not; Who Seem To Die Live. House You Were Born In, Friends Of Your Spring-time, Old Man And Young Maid, Day's Toil And It's Guerdon, They Are All Vanishing, Fleeing To Fables, Cannot Be Moored

The Highest Beauty Should Be Plain Set.

If The Tongue Had Not Been Framed For Articulation, Man Would Still Be A Beast In The Forest.

Most Of The Great Results Of History Are Brought About By Discreditable Means.

Life Has A Way Of Demanding That You Live It.

We Don't Grow Old. When We Cease To Grow, We Become Old.

Though We Travel The World Over To Find The Beautiful, We Must Carry It With Us Or We Find It Not.

Great Men, Great Nations, Have Not Been Boasters And Buffoons, But Perceivers Of The Terror Of Life, And Have Manned Themselves To Face It.

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

Life Wastes Itself Whilst We Are Preparing To Live.

Romeo, Of Dead, Should Be Cut Up Into Little Stars To Make The Heavens Fine. Life, With This Pair, Has No Other Aim, Asks No More,than Juliet,--than Romeo.

Strange Is This Alien Despotism Of Sleep Which Takes Two Persons Lying In Each Other's Arms & Separates Them Leagues, Continents,asunder.

When I First Open My Eyes Upon The Morning Meadows And Look Out Upon The Beautiful World, I Thank God I Am Alive.

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

We Know Truth When We See It, From Opinion, As We Know When We Are Awake That We Are Awake.

Is The Parent Better Than The Child Into Whom He Has Cast His Ripened Being? Whence, Then, This Worship Of The Past?

If There Be Any Man Who Thinks The Ruin Of A Race Of Men A Small Matter, Compared With The Last Decoration And Completions Of Hisown Comfort,--who Would Not So Much As Part With His Ice- Cream, To Save Them From Rapine And Manacles, I Think I Must Not Hesitate To Satisfy That Man That Also His Cream And Vanilla Are Safer And Cheaper By Placing The Negro Nation On A Fair Footing Than By Robbing Them.

Intellect Annuls Fate. So Far As A Man Thinks He Is Free.

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.

God Has Delegated Himself To A Million Deputies.

But In Our Experience, Man Is Cheap And Friendship Wants Its Deep Sense. We Affect To Dwell With Our Friends In Their Absence, But We Do Not; When Deed, Word, Or Letter Comes Not, They Let Us Go.

It Is A Sign Of Our Times, Conspicuous To The Coarsest Observer, That Many Intelligent And Religious Persons Withdraw Themselves From The Common Labors And Competitions Of The Market And The Caucus, And Betake Themselves To A Certain Solitary And Critical Way Of Living, From Which No Solid Fruit Has Yet Appeared To Justify Their Separation.

You Need Not Fear To Handle The Truth Roughly. She Is No Invalid.

Knowledge Exists To Be Imparted.

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.

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

Eloquence Is The Appropriate Organ Of The Highest Personal Energy.

We Owe To Genius Always The Same Debt, Of Lifting The Curtain From The Common, And Showing Us That Divinities Are Sitting Disguised In The Seeming Gang Of Gypsies And Peddlars.

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

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.

With Most Men, Scarce A Link Of Memory Holds Yesterday And To-day Together.

The Hero Is Suffered To Be Himself.

Truly Speaking, It Is Not Instruction, But Provocation, That I Can Receive From Another Soul. What He Announces, I Must Find True In Me, Or Reject; And On His Word, Or As His Second, Be He Who He May, I Can Accept Nothing.

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 Invariable Mark Of Wisdom Is To See The Miraculous In The Common.

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.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy, But In The State, And In The Schools, It Is Indispensable To Resist The Consolidation Ofall Men Into A Few Men.

Guard Well Your Spare Moments. They Are Like Uncut Diamonds. Discard Them And Their Value Will Never Be Known. Improve Them And They Will Become The Brightest Gems In A Useful Life.

Stand Guard At The Portal Of Your Mind.

Sickness Is Poor-spirited, And Cannot Serve Anyone; It Must Husband Its Resources To Live. But Health Or Fullness Answers Its Own Ends, And Has To Spare, Runs Over, And Inundates The Neighborhoods And Creeks Of Other Men's Necessities.

As Every Man Is Hunted By His Own Daemon, Vexed By His Own Disease, This Checks All His Activity.

Do What You Know And Perception Is Converted Into Character.

Let Him Be Great, And Love Shall Follow Him. Nothing Is More Deeply Punished Than The Neglect Of The Affinities By Which Alone Society Should Be Formed, And The Insane Levity Of Choosing Associates By Others Eyes.

There Is No Man Of Nature's Worth In The Circle Of The Earth.

Sometimes We Receive The Power To Say Yes To Life. Then Peace Enters Us And Makes Us Whole.

When I Bought My Farm, I Did Not Know What A Bargain I Had In The Bluebirds, Daffodils And Thrushes; As Little Did I Know What Sublime Mornings And Sunsets I Was Buying.

Happy Is The Hearing Man; Unhappy The Speaking Man.

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

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

Read Proudly--put The Duty Of Being Read Invariably On The Author. If He Is Not Read, Whose Fault Is It? I Am Quite Ready To Be Charmed, But I Shall Not Make-believe I Am Charmed.

How Painful To Give A Gift To Any Person Of Sensibility, Or Of Equality! It Is Next Worst To Receiving One

I Find That The Americans Have No Passions, They Have Appetites.

Freedom Is The Essence Of This Faith. It Has For Its Object Simply To Make Men Good And Wise. Its Institutions Then Should Be As Flexible As The Wants Of Men. That Form Out Of Which The Life And Suitableness Have Departed Should Be As Worthless In Its Eyes As The Dead Leaves That Are Falling Around Us.

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.

For Beauty Is God's Handwriting...a Nd, Thank God For It As A Cup Of His Blessing.

Christian Inspirational

When A Man Meets His Make, Society Begins.

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.

We Judge Of A Man's Wisdom By His Hope, Knowing That The Inexhaustibleness Of Nature Is An Immortal Youth.

Often A Certain Abdication Of Prudence And Foresight Is An Element Of Success.

Congratulations

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

Power Educates The Potentate.

The Subject Is Said To Have The Property Of Making Dull Men Eloquent.

Self Reliance, The Height And Perfection Of Man, Is Reliance On God.

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.

Fear God, And Where You Go Men Shall Think They Walk In Hallowed Cathedrals.

There Is No History; Only Biography.

Yet Some Natures Are Too Good To Be Spoiled By Praise, And Wherever The Vein Of Thought Reaches Down Into The Profound, There Is No Danger From Vanity. Solemn Friends Will Warn Them Of The Danger Of The Head's Being Turned By The Flourish Of Trumpets, But They Can Afford To Smile.

Silent Rushes The Swift Lord Through Ruined Systems Still Restored, Broadsowing, Bleak And Void To Bless, Plants With Worlds The Wilderness; Waters With Tears Of Ancient Sorrow Apples Of Eden Ripe To-morrow. House And Tenant Go To Ground, Lost In God, In Godhead Found.

Desire Is Possibility Seeking Expression.

We Are Symbols, And Inhabit Symbols.

Knowledge Is The Only Elegance.

It Is For Want Of Self-culture That The Superstition Of Travelling, Whose Idols Are Italy, England, Egypt, Retains Its Fascinationfor All Educated Americans.

I Would Have The Studies Elective. Scholarship Is To Be Created Not By Compulsion, But By Awakening A Pure Interest In Knowledge. The Wise Instructor Accomplishes This By Opening To His Pupils Precisely The Attractions The Study Has For Himself. The Marking Is A System For Schools, Not For The College; For Boys, Not For Men; And It Is An Ungracious Work To Put On A Professor.

What Is The Imagination? Only An Arm Or Weapon Of The Interior Energy; Only The Precursor Of The Reason.

Every Man Beholds His Human Condition With A Degree Of Melancholy. As A Ship Aground Is Battered By The Waves, So Man, Imprisonedin Mortal Life, Lies Open To The Mercy Of Coming Events.

People Disparage Knowing And The Intellectual Life, And Urge Doing. I Am Content With Knowing, If Only I Could Know.

Each Man, If He Attempts To Join Himself To Others, Is On All Sides Cramped And Diminished Of His Proportion; And The Stricter Theunion, The Smaller And The More Pitiful He Is. But Leave Him Alone, To Recognize In Every Hour And Place The Secret Soul, He Will Go Up And Down Doing The Works Of A True Member, And, To The Astonishment Of All, The Work Will Be Done With Concert, Though No Man Spoke.

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.

And In Cases Where Profound Conviction Has Been Wrought, The Eloquent Man Is He Who Is No Beautiful Speaker, But Who Is Inwardly Drunk With A Certain Belief. It Agitates And Tears Him, And Perhaps Almost Bereaves Him Of The Power Of Articulation.

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.

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

Wherever There Is Power, There Is Age. Don't Be Deceived By Dimples And Curls. I Tell You That Babe Is A Thousand Years Old.

When I Walk Up The Piazza Of Santa Croce I Feel As If It Were Not A Florentine Nor An European Church But A Church Built By And For The Human Race.

The Soul Rules Over Matter. Matter May Pass Away Like A Mote In The Sunbeam, May Be Absorbed Into The Immensity Of God, As A Mistis Absorbed Into The Heat Of The Sun--but The Soul Is The Kingdom Of God, The Abode Of Love, Of Truth, Of Virtue.

Heat Of The Sun

We Aim Above The Mark, To Hit The Mark. Every Act Hath Some Falsehood Of Exaggeration In It.

In The Learned Journal, In The Influential Newspaper, I Discern No Form; Only Some Irresponsible Shadow; Oftener Some Monied Corporation, Or Some Dangler, Who Hopes, In The Mask And Robes Of His Paragraph, To Pass For Somebody. But Through Every Clause And Part Of Speech Of The Right Book I Meet The Eyes Of The Most Determined Men; His Force And Terror Inundate Every Word: The Commas And Dashes Are Alive; So That The Writing Is Athletic And Nimble,--can Go Far And Live Long.

What We Call Results Are Beginnings.

Thoughts Rule The World.

The Sea, Washing The Equator And The Poles, Offers Its Perilous Aid, And The Power And Empire That Follow It... ''beware Of Me,'' It Says, ''but If You Can Hold Me, I Am The Key To All The Lands.

Some Of The Sweetest Hours In Life, In Retrospect Will Be Found To Have Been Spent With Books.

Would We Codify The Laws That Should Reign In Households, And Whose Daily Transgression Annoys And Mortifies Us, And Degrades Our Household Life, We Must Adorn Every Day With Sacrifices. Good Manners Are Made Up Of Petty Sacrifices.

An Eye Can Threaten Like A Loaded And Levelled Gun, Or It Can Insult Like Hissing Or Kicking; Or, In Its Altered Mood, By Beams Of Kindness, It Can Make The Heart Dance For Joy. ... One Of The Most Wonderful Things In Nature Is A Glance Of The Eye; It Transcends Speech; It Is The Bodily Symbol Of Identity.

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

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 Peace Of The Man Who Has Forsworn The Use Of The Bullet Seems To Me Not Quite Peace, But A Canting Impotence.

Deal In Our Privacy With The Last Honesty And Truth.

God Will Not Make Himself Manifest To Cowards

The Hues Of The Opal, The Light Of The Diamond, Are Not To Be Seen If The Eye Is Too Near.

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.

The Secret Of Success In Education Is Respecting The Students.

Secret To Success

Whilst We Want Cities As The Centres Where The Best Things Are Found, Cities Degrade Us By Magnifying Trifles.

The Craft Of The Merchant Is This Bringing A Thing Where It Abounds To Where It Is Costly.

What Is Excellent, As God Lives, Is Permanent; Hearts Are Dust, Hearts' Loves Remain, Heart's Love Will Meet Thee Again.

The Measure Of Mental Health Is The Disposition To Find Good Everywhere.

The Less A Man Thinks Or Knows About His Virtues, The Better We Like Him.

A Divine Person Is The Prophecy Of The Mind; A Friend Is The Hope Of The Heart.

A Good Symbol Is The Best Argument, And Is A Missionary To Persuade Thousands.

Courage Of The Soldier Awakes The Courage Of Woman.

To A Dull Mind All Of Nature Is Leaden. To The Illumined Mind The Whole World Burns And Sparkles With Light.

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

If Two Or Three Persons Should Come With A High Spiritual Aim And With Great Powers, The World Would Fall Into Their Hands Like A Ripe Peach.

These Arts Open Great Gates Of A Future, Promising To Make The World Plastic And To Lift Human Life Out Of Its Beggary To A God- Like Ease And Power.

I Learn Immediately From Any Speaker How Much He Has Already Lived, Through The Poverty Or The Splendor Of His Speech. Life Lies Behind Us As The Quarry From Whence We Get Tiles And Copestones For The Masonry Of Today. This Is The Way To Learn Grammar. Colleges And Books Only Copy The Language Which The Field And The Work-yard Made.

Jesus And Shakespeare Are Fragments Of The Soul, And By Love I Conquer And Incorporate Them In My Own Conscious Domain. His Virtue,--is Not That Mine? His Wit,--if It Cannot Be Made Mine, It Is Not Wit.

If You Know You Are Right, Stay The Course Even Though The Whole World Seems To Be Against You And Everyone You Know Questions Your Judgment. When You Prevail--and You Eventually Will If You Stick To The Job--they Will All Tell You That They Knew All Along You Could Do It.

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

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.

I Shun Father And Mother And Wife And Brother When My Genius Calls Me. I Would Write On The Lintels Of The Door-post, Whim. I Hope That It Is Somewhat Better Than Whim At Last, But We Cannot Spend The Day In Explanation.

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

A Little Consideration Of What Takes Place Around Us Every Day Would Show Us That A Higher Law Than That Of Our Will Regulates Events; That Our Painful Labors Are Unnecessary And Fruitless; That Only In Our Easy, Simple, Spontaneous Action Are We Strong . . . . Place Yourself In The Middle Of The Stream Of Power And Wisdom Which Animates All Whom It Floats, And You Are Without Effort Impelled To Truth, To Right, And A Perfect Contentment.

The Heroic Soul Does Not Sell Its Justice And Its Nobleness. It Does Not Ask To Dine Nicely And To Sleep Warm. The Essence Of Greatness Is The Perception That Virtue Is Enough. Poverty Is Its Ornament. It Does Not Need Plenty, And Can Very Well Abide Its Loss.

Solitude Is Impractical, And Society Fatal. We Must Keep Our Head In The One And Our Hands In The Other. The Conditions Are Met, If We Keep Our Independence, Yet Do Not Lose Our Sympathy.

The Field Cannot Be Well Seen From Within The Field. The Astronomer Must Have His Diameter Of The Earth's Orbit As A Base To Fix The Parallax Of Any Other Star

For, Rightly, Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth, And, Whilst I Fancied I Was Criticising Him, I Was Censuring Orrather Terminating My Own Soul.

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

Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life.

Public Speaking

We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Power Of Thoughts.

Power Of Thought

A Man's Style Is His Mind's Voice. Wooden Minds, Wooden Voices.

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.

Truth Is The Summit Of Being.

The Whole Secret Of The Teacher's Force Lies In The Conviction That Men Are Convertible.

Nor Has Science Sufficient Humanity, So Long As The Naturalist Overlooks The Wonderful Congruity Which Subsists Between Man And The World; Of Which He Is Lord, Not Because He Is The Most Subtile Inhabitant, But Because He Is Its Head And Heart, And Finds Something Of Himself In Every Great And Small Thing, In Every Mountain Stratum, In Every New Law Of Color, Fact Of Astronomy, Or Atmospheric Influence Which Observation Or Analysis Lay Open.

Not Gold But Only Men Can Makea People Great And Strong;men Who For Truth And Honors Sakestand Fast And Suffer Long. Brave Men Who Work While Others Sleep,who Dare While Others Flythey Build A Nations Pillars Deepand Lift Them To The Sky.

We Stand Against Fate, As Children Stand Up Against The Wall In Their Father's House, And Notch Their Height From Year To Year. But When The Boy Grows To A Man, And Is Master Of The House, He Pulls Down That Wall And Builds It New And Bigger.

The Essence Of Greatness Is The Perception That Virtue Is Enough.

Great Conversation ... Requires An Absolute Running Of Two Souls Into One.

The Intellect,-that Is Miraculous! Who Has It, Has The Talisman: His Skin And Bones, Though They Were Of The Color Of Night, Are Transparent, And The Everlasting Stars Shine Through, With Attractive Beams.

Every Great Man Is Unique.

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

Frankness Invites Frankness.

That Which Builds Is Better Than That Which Is Built.

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

There Is More Difference In The Quality Of Our Pleasures Than In The Amount.

Sincerity Is The Highest Complement You Can Pay

The Mass Are Animal, In Pupilage, And Near Chimpanzee.

Whatever Limits Us We Call Fate.

Tis Good-will Makes Intelligence.

As Long As Civilization Is Essentially One Of Property, Of Fences, Of Exclusiveness, It Will Be Mocked By Delusions. Our Riches Will Leave Us Sick; There Will Be Bitterness In Our Laughter, And Our Wine Will Burn Our Mouth. Only That Good Profits Which We Can Taste With All Doors Open, And Which Serves All Men.

Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.

One Definition Of Man Is An Intelligence Served By Organs.

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.

We Do Not Live An Equal Life, But One Of Contrasts And Patchwork; Now A Little Joy, Then A Sorrow, Now A Sin, Then A Generous Or Brave Action.

The Crystal Sphere Of Thought Is As Concentrical As The Geological Structure Of The Globe. As Our Soils And Rocks Lie In Strata, Concentric Strata, So Do All Men's Thinkings Run Laterally, Never Vertically.

Literature Is The Effort Of Man To Indemnify Himself For The Wrongs Of His Condition.

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

Every Word Was Once A Poem. Every New Relation Is A New Word.

"do Not Call Yourself An "artist-photographer" And Make "artist-painters" And "artist-sculptors" Laugh; Call Yourself A Photographer And Wait For Artists To Call You Brother."

Nature Does Not Cocker Us: We Are Children, Not Pets: She Is Not Fond: Everything Is Dealt To Us Without Fear Or Favor, After Severe Universal Laws.

There Are Many Eyes That Can Detect And Honor The Prudent And Household Virtues; There Are Many That Can Discern Genius On His Starry Track, Though The Mob Is Incapable; But When That Love Which Is All-suffering, All-abstaining, All-aspiring, Which Has Vowed To Itself, That It Will Be A Wretch And Also A Fool In This World, Sooner Than Soil Its White Hands By Any Compliances, Comes Into Our Streets And Houses,--only The Pure And Aspiring Can Know Its Face, And The Only Compliment They Can Pay It, Is To Own It.

I Unsettle All Things.

Men Love To Wonder, And That Is The Seed Of Science.

It Is Greatest To Believe And To Hope Well Of The World, Because He Who Does So, Quits The World Of Experience, And Makes The World He Lives In.

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

The People Are To Be Taken In Very Small Doses.

Public Speaking

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

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

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.

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.

That For Which Paul Lived And Died So Gloriously; That For Which Jesus Gave Himself To Be Crucified; The End That Animated The Thousand Martyrs And Heroes Who Have Followed His Steps, Was To Redeem Us From A Formal Religion, And Teach Us To Seek Our Well-being In The Formation Of The Soul.

We Are Always Getting Ready To Live, But Never Living... The Wave Moves Onward But The Particles Of Which It Is Composed Do Not... It Cannot Be But That At Intervals Throughout Society There Are Real Men Intermixed . . . As The Carpenter Puts One Iron Bar In His Bannister For Every Five Or Six Wooden Ones.

Yourself A Newborn Bard Of The Holy Ghost, Cast Behind You All Conformity, And Acquaint Men At First Hand With Deity.

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

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

Defect In Manners Is Usually The Defect Of Fine Perceptions. Elegance Comes Of No Breeding, But Of Birth.

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

The Public Values The Invention More Than The Inventor Does. The Inventor Knows There Is Much More And Better Where This Came From.

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