Background Image

...

The Other Terror That Scares Us From Self-trust Is Our Consistency; A Reverence For Our Past Act Or Word, Because The Eyes Of Others Have No Other Data For Computing Our Orbit Than Our Past Acts, And We Are Loath To Disappoint Them.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Other Terror That

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

The Other Terror That Scares Us From Self-trust Is Our Consistency; A Reverence For Our Past Act Or Word, Because The Eyes Of Others Have No Other Data For Computing Our Orbit Than Our Past Acts, And We Are Loath To Disappoint Them.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Secret Of Culture Is To Learn, That A Few Great Points Steadily Reappear, Alike In The Poverty Of The Obscurest Farm, And In The Miscellany Of Metropolitan Life, And That These Few Are Alone To Be Regarded,--the Escape From All False Ties; Courage To Be What We Are; And Love What Is Simple And Beautiful; Independence And Cheerful Relation, These Are The Essentials,--these, And The Wish To Serve,--to Add Somewhat To The Well-being Of Men.

The Counting-room Maxims Liberally Expounded Are Laws Of The Universe. The Merchant's Economy Is A Coarse Symbol Of The Soul's Economy. It Is, To Spend For Power, And Not For Pleasure.

Lose Yourself In Nature And Find Peace

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

The Highest End Of Government Is The Culture Of Men.

All Things Are Flowing, Even Those That Seem Immovable. The Adamant Is Always Passing Into Smoke. The Plants Imbibe The Materialswhich They Want From The Air And The Ground. They Burn, That Is, Exhale And Decompose Their Own Bodies Into The Air And Earth Again. The Animal Burns, Or Undergoes The Like Perpetual Consumption. The Earth Burns, The Mountains Burn And Decompose, Slower, But Incessantly.

Men Of Extraordinary Success, In Their Honest Moments, Have Always Sung, "not Unto Us, Not Unto Us." According To The Faith Of Their Times, They Have Built Altars To Fortune, Or To Destiny, Or To St. Julian. Their Success Lay In Their Parallelism To The Course Of Thought, Which Found In Them An Unobstructed Channel; And The Wonders Of Which They Were The Visible Conductors Seemed To Their Eye Their Deed.

Democracy Becomes A Government Of Bullies Tempered By Editors.

Democracies Have

Eloquence Shows The Power And Possibility Of Man.

The Sky Is The Ultimate Art Gallery Just Above Us.

Who Gave Thee, O Beauty, The Keys Of This Breast,-- Too Credulous Lover Of Blest And Unblest? Say, When In Lapsed Ages Thee Knew I Of Old? Or What Was The Service For Which I Was Sold?

I Do Not Wonder At A Snowflake, A Shell, A Summer Landscape, Or The Glory Of The Stars; But At The Necessity Of Beauty Under Which The Universe Lies.

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

I Have Been Told, That In Some Public Discourses Of Mine My Reverence For The Intellect Has Made Me Unjustly Cold To The Personalrelations. But Now I Almost Shrink At The Remembrance Of Such Disparaging Words. For Persons Are Love's World, And The Coldest Philosopher Cannot Recount The Debt Of The Young Soul Wandering Here In Nature To The Power Of Love, Without Being Tempted To Unsay, As Treasonable To Nature, Aught Derogatory To The Social Instincts.

There Is Properly No History, Only Biography.

Manners Make The Fortune Of The Ambitious Youth.

Do What You Know And Perception Is Converted Into Character.

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

I Cannot Marry The Facts Of William Shakespeare To His Verse: Other Men Had Led Lives In Some Sort Of Keeping With Their Thought, But This Man Is In Wide Contrast.

I Pack My Trunk, Embrace My Friends, Embark On The Sea And At Last Wake Up In Naples, And There Beside Me Is The Stern Fact, The Sad Self, Unrelenting, Identical, That I Fled From.

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

The Soul Comes From Without Into The Human Body, As Into A Temporary Abode, And It Goes Out Of It Anew It Passes Into Other Habitations, For The Soul Is Immortal." "it Is The Secret Of The World That All Things Subsist And Do Not Die, But Only Retire A Little From Sight And Afterwards Return Again. Nothing Is Dead; Men Feign Themselves Dead, And Endure Mock Funerals... And There They Stand Looking Out Of The Window, Sound And Well, In Some Strange New Disguise.

A Good Intention But Fixed And Resolute - Bent On High And Holy Ends, We Shall Find Means To Them On Every Side And At Every Moment; And Even Obstacles And Opposition Will But Make Us "like The Fabled Specter-ships," Which Sail The Fastest In The Very Teeth Of The Wind.

The Action Of The Soul Is Oftener In That Which Is Felt And Left Unsaid Than In That Which Is Said In Any Conversation. It Broods Over Every Society, And Men Unconsciously Seek For It In Each Other.

Too Busy With The Crowded Hour To Fear To Live Or Die.

Cities Force Growth And Make People Talkative And Entertaining, But They Also Make Them Artificial.

I Will No Longer Confer, Differ, Refer, Defer, Prefer, Or Suffer. I Renounce The Whole Tribe Of Fero. I Embrace Absolute Life.

The Yankee Is One Who, If He Once Gets His Teeth Set On A Thing, All Creation Can't Make Him Let Go.

Tobacco And Opium Have Broad Backs, And Will Cheerfully Carry The Load Of Armies, If You Choose To Make Them Pay High For Such Joy As They Give And Such Harm As They Do.

Our Day Of Dependence, Our Long Apprenticeship To The Learning Of Other Lands, Draws To A Close. The Millions, That Around Us Arerushing Into Life, Cannot Always Be Fed On The Sere Remains Of Foreign Harvests.

The World When Seen Through A Little Child's Eyes, Greatly Resembles Paradise. Happiness Is Doing With A Smile What You Have To Do Anyway. This Time, Like All Time, Is A Very Good One If We But Know What To Do With It.

Miracle Comes To The Miraculous, Not To The Arithmetician.

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!

There Is Nothing In History To Parallel The Influence Of Jesus Christ.

And Of Poetry, The Success Is Not Attained When It Lulls And Satisfies, But When It Astonishes And Fires Us With New Endeavours After The Unattainable.

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

Science Finds It Methods.

I Cannot Go To The Houses Of My Nearest Relatives, Because I Do Not Wish To Be Alone. Society Exists By Chemical Affinity, And Not Otherwise.

...man Is An Analogist, And Studies Relations In All Objects. He Is Placed In The Center Of Beings, And A Ray Of Relation Passes From Every Other Being To Him. And Neither Can Man Be Understood Without These Objects, Nor These Objects Without Man.

All Are Needed By Each One; Nothing Is Fair Or Good Alone.

Nature Tells Every Secret Once.

Accuracy Is Essential To Beauty.

The Relations Of The Soul To The Divine Spirit Are So Pure, That It Is Profane To Seek To Interpose Helps.

Good Poetry Could Not Have Been Otherwise Written Than It Is. The First Time You Hear It, It Sounds Rather As If Copied Out Of Some Invisible Tablet In The Eternal Mind Than As If Arbitrarily Composed By The Poet.

Some Books Leave Us Free And Some Books Make Us Free.

Books And Reading

A Work Of Art Is An Abstract Or Epitome Of The World. It Is The Result Or Expression Of Nature, In Miniature. For, Although The Works Of Nature Are Innumerable And All Different, The Result Or The Expression Of Them All Is Similar And Single.

Can Rules Or Tutors Educate The Semigod Whom We Await? He Must Be Musical, Tremulous, Impressional, Alive To Gentle Influence Of Landscape And Of Sky And Tender To The Spirit-touch Of Man's Or Maiden's Eye.

Sorrow Looks Back, Worry Looks Around, Faith Looks Up

Five Minutes Of Today Are Worth As Much To Me, As Five Minutes In The Next Millennium. Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today.

Let The Bird Sing Without Deciphering The Song.

The Aristocrat Is The Democrat Ripe, And Gone To Seed.

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.

Meek Young Men Grow Up In Colleges And Believe It Is Their Duty To Accept The Views Which Books Have Given, And Grow Up Slaves.

Everywhere I Am Hindered Of Meeting God In My Brother, Because He Has Shut His Own Temple Doors And Recites Fables Merely Of His Brother's, Or His Brother's Brother's God.

The Chief Value Of The New Fact Is To Enhance The Great And Constant Fact Of Life.

Speak As You Think, Be What You Are, Pay Your Debts Of All Kinds. I Prefer To Be Owned As Sound And Solvent, And My Word As Good As My Bond, And To Be What Cannot Be Skipped, Or Dissipated, Or Undermined, To All The Eclat In The Universe. This Reality Is The Foundation Of Friendship, Religion, Poetry, And Art.

We Gain The Strength Of The Temptation We Resist.

All The World Loves A Lover.

Fear Defeats More People Than Any Other One Thing In The World.

We Talk Of Choosing Our Friends, But Friends Are Self-elected.

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.

There Is A Remedy For Every Wrong And A Satisfaction For Every Soul.

Motion Or Change, And Identity Or Rest, Are The First And Second Secrets Of Nature: Motion And Rest. The Whole Code Of Her Laws May Be Written On The Thumbnail, Or The Signet Of A Ring.

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

So Each Man, Like Each Plant, Has His Parasites. A Strong, Astringent, Bilious Nature Has More Truculent Enemies Than The Slugs And Moths That Fret My Leaves. Such A One Has Curculios, Borers, Knife-worms; A Swindler Ate Him First, Then A Client, Then A Quack, Then Smooth, Plausible Gentlemen, Bitter And Selfish As Moloch.

The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks.

When It Is Dark Enough, Men See The Stars.

Be Silly. Be Honest. Be Kind.

The Rain Comes When The Wind Calls.

If You Don't Ride In The Rain, You Don't Ride.

Riding Your Bike

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

Finish Each Day Before You Begin The Next, And Interpose A Solid Wall Of Sleep Between The Two. This You Cannot Do Without Temperance.

Go Cherish Your Soul; Express Companions; Set Your Habits To A Life Of Solitude; Then Will The Faculties Rise Fair And Full Within.

Good Thoughts Are No Better Than Good Dreams If You Don't Follow Through.

There Is A Tendency In Things To Right Themselves, And The War Or Revolution Or Bankruptcy That Shatters Rotten System, Allows Things To Take A New And Natural Order.

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

Savages Cling To A Local God Of One Tribe Or Town. The Broad Ethics Of Jesus Were Quickly Narrowed To Village Theologies, Which Preach An Election Or Favoritism.

What I Must Do Is All That Concerns Me, Not What The People Think.

Others Can Get In Your Way Temporarily, But Only You Can Get Out Of Your Way Permanently. Our Best Thoughts Come From Others.

There Are Days When The Great Are Near Us, When There Is No Frown On Their Brow, No Condescension Even; When They Take Us By The Hand, And We Share Their Thought.

Shallow Men Believe In Luck.

Our Condition As Men Is Risky And Ticklish Enough. One Can Not Be Sure Of Himself And His Fortune An Hour, But He May Be Whisked Off Into Some Pitiable Or Ridiculous Plight.

We Judge Others By Their Actions But We Judge Ourselves By Our Intensions.

All The Great Speakers Were Bad Speakers At First.

Love Is Like A Hunter, Who Cares Not For The Game When Once Caught, Which He May Have Pursued With The Most Intense And Breathless Eagerness. Love Is Strongest In Pursuit; Friendship In Possession.

A Good Indignation Brings Out All One's Powers.

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.

Some Men, At The Approach Of A Dispute, Neigh Like Horses.

Every Book Is Good To Read Which Sets The Reader In A Working Mood.

You Have First An Instinct, Then An Opinion, Then A Knowledge, As The Plant Has Root, Bud, And Fruit.

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.

We Are Shut Up In Schools And College Recitation Rooms For Ten Or Fifteen Years, And Come Out At Last With A Bellyful Of Words And Do Not Know A Thing.

It Must Be That When God Speaketh, He Should Communicate, Not One Thing, But All Things; Should Fill The World With His Voice; Should Scatter Forth Light, Nature, Time, Souls, From The Centre Of The Present Thought; And New Date And New Create The Whole.whenever A Mind Is Simple And Receives A Divine Wisdom, Old Things Pass Away, - Means, Teachers, Texts, Temples Fall; It Lives Now, And Absorbs Past And Future Into The Present Hour. All Things Are Made Sacred By Relation To It,-one As Much As Another. All Things Are Disolved To Ther Center By Thier Cause.

Today Is A King In Disguise.

As Arkwright And Whitney Were The Demi-gods Of Cotton, So Prolific Time Will Yet Bring An Inventor To Every Plant. There Is Not A Property In Nature But A Mind Is Born To Seek And Find It.

Continual Failure Is A Road To Success - If You Have The Strength To Go On.

Road To Success

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

The Foundation Of Culture, As Of Character, Is At Last The Moral Sentiment.

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

The Men Who Come On The Stage At One Period Are All Found To Be Related To Each Other. Certain Ideas Are In The Air.

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

And So The Reliance On Property, Including The Reliance On Governments Which Protect It, Is The Want Of Self-reliance.

Plato Says That The Punishment Which The Wise Suffer Who Refuse To Take Part In The Government, Is, To Live Under The Government Of Worse Men; And The Like Regret Is Suggested To All The Auditors, As The Penalty Of Abstaining To Speak,--that They Shall Hear Worse Orators Than Themselves.

Everything In Nature Is Bipolar, Or Has A Positive And A Negative Pole.

Who Hears Me, Who Understands Me, Becomes Mine, A Possession For All Time.

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

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.

The Disease With Which The Human Mind Now Labors Is Want Of Faith

A Great Man Is Always Willing To Be Little.

The Pleasure Of Life Is According To The Man That Lives It, And Not According To The Work Or Place.

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.

A Seashell Should Be The Crest Of England, Not Only Because It Represents A Power Built On The Waves, But Also The Hard Finish Ofthe Men. The Englishman Is Finished Like A Cowry Or A Murex.

Make Yourself Necessary To The World, And Mankind Will Give You Bread.

There Is Not A Piece Of Science, But Its Flank May Be Turned Tomorrow.

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

Passion, Though A Bad Regulator, Is A Powerful Spring.

Genius Seems To Consistent Merely In Trueness Of Sight.

Let Every Man Shovel Out His Own Snow And The Whole City Will Be Passable.

Desire Is Possibility Seeking Expression.

A Good Deal Of Our Politics Is Physiological.

Who Does Not Sometimes Envy The Good And The Brave, Who Are No More To Suffer From The Tumults Of The Natural World, And Await With Curious Complacency The Speedy Term Of His Own Conversation With Finite Nature?

Blame Is Safer Than Praise

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

In Every Work Of Genius We Recognize Our Own Rejected Thoughts; They Come Back To Us With A Certain Alienated Majesty.

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

Every Actual State Is Corrupt. Good Men Must Not Obey The Laws Too Well. What Satire On Government Can Equal The Severity Of Censure Conveyed In The Word Politics ....?

Society Never Advances. It Recedes As Fast On One Side As It Gains On The Other. Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

Men Should Take Their Knowledge From The Sun, The Moon And The Stars.

None Shall Rule But The Humble,and None But Toil Shall Have.

Men Are Like Geneva Watches With Crystal Faces, Which Expose The Whole Movement.

London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

Talent May Frolic And Juggle; Genius Realizes And Adds.

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

The Corruption Of Man Is Followed By The Corruption Of Language. ... In Due Time, The Fraud Is Manifest, And Words Lose All Power To Stimulate The Understanding Or The Affections.

Every Man Is An Infinitely Repelling Orb, And Holds His Individual Being On That Condition.

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

Being Different

The Greatest Discoveries Are Those That Shed Light Unto Ourselves.

As Thinkers, Mankind Has Ever Divided Into Two Sects, Materialists And Idealists; The First Class Founding On Experience, The Second On Consciousness; The First Class Beginning To Think From The Data Of The Senses, The Second Class Perceive That The Senses Are Not Final And Say, The Senses Give Us Representations Of Things, But What Are The Things Themselves, They Cannot Tell. The Materialist Insists On Facts, On History, On The Force Of Circumstances And The Animal Wants Of Man; The Idealists On The Power Of Thought And Will, On Inspiration, On Miracle, On Individual Culture.

When A Man Meets His Make, Society Begins.

Let Us Not Forget The Genial Miraculous Force We Have Known To Proceed From A Book.

Souls Are Not Saved In Bundles.

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.

And What Greater Calamity Can Fall Upon A Nation Than The Loss Of Worship.

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

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year. No Man Has Learned Anything Rightly, Until He Knows That Every Day Is Doomsday.

Inspirational Life

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

If The Race Is Good, So Is The Place.

The Artist Always Has The Masters In His Eyes.

We Are Too Civil To Books. For A Few Golden Sentences We Will Turn Over And Actually Read A Volume Of Four Or Five Hundred Pages.

Before We Acquire Great Power We Must Acquire Wisdom To Use It Well.

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

You Cannot Do Wrong Without Suffering Wrong.

Our Debt To Tradition Through Reading And Conversation Is So Massive, Our Protest So Rare And Insignificant-and This Commonly On The Ground Of Other Reading And Hearing-that In Large Sense, One Would Say There Is No Pure Originality. All Minds Quote. Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands. By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote. It Is As Difficult To Appropriate The Thoughts Of Others As It Is To Invent.

We Seldom See Anybody Who Is Not Uneasy Or Afraid To Live.

The Exceptional Life Depends Not On Working Harder, But On Different, Even Opposite, Actions From Habit And The Crowd.

A Man Cannot Speak But He Judges Himself

The Greatest Genius Is The Most Indebted Person.

The Richest Of All Lords Is Use, And Ruddy Health The Loftiest Muse. Live In The Sunshine, Swim The Sea, Drink The Wild Air's Salubrity.

Our Thinking Is A Pious Reception.

Goodness That Preaches Undoes Itself.

Foolish Consistencies Are The Hobgoblins Of Small Minds!

When You Have Worn Out Yourshoes, The Strength Of The Shoe Leather Has Passed Into The Fiber Ofyour Body. I Measure Your Health By The Number Of Shoes And Hats Andclothes You Have Worn Out.

Men Admire The Man Who Can Organize Their Wishes And Thoughts In Stone And Wood And Steel And Brass.

Echo Waits With Art And Care And Will The Faults Of Song Repair.

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.

There Is An Intimate Interdependence Of Intellect And Morals.

Nature Ever Faithful Is To Such As Trust Her Faithfulness.

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

The Charming Landscape Which I Saw This Morning Is Indubitably Made Up Of Some Twenty Or Thirty Farms. Miller Owns This Field, Locke That, And Manning The Woodland Beyond. But None Of Them Owns The Landscape. There Is Property In The Horizon Which No Man Has But He Whose Eye Can Integrate All Parts, That Is, The Poet. This Is The Best Part Of These Men's Farms, Yet To This Their Warranty-deeds Give No Title.

Each Mind Has Its Own Method.

Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Short Distances The Senses Are Despotic.

I Wish The Days To Be As Centuries, Loaded, Fragrant. Now We Reckon Them As Bank-days, By Some Debt Which Is To Be Paid Us, Or Which We Are To Pay, Or Some Pleasure We Are To Taste.

Books Are For Nothing But To Inspire

A Man In The View Of Absolute Goodness, Adores, With Total Humility. Every Step Downward, Is A Step Upward. The Man Who Renounceshimself, Comes To Himself.

If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being.

We Are Very Near To Greatness: One Step And We Are Safe; Can We Not Take The Leap?

Do Your Thing, And I Shall Know You.

If A Man Owns Land, The Land Owns Him.

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.

Flowers Are The Earth Laughing.

Nor Knowest Thou What Argument Thy Life To Thy Neighbor's Creed Has Lent. All Are Needed By Each One; Nothing Is Fair Or Good Alone.

The Reason Of Idleness And Of Crime Is The Deferring Of Our Hopes. Whilst We Are Waiting, We Beguile The Time With Jokes, With Sleep, With Eating, And With Crimes.

Love Is The Essence Of God.

The Conscious Utterance Of Thought, By Speech Or Action, To Any End, Is Art.

We Fly To Beauty As An Asylum From The Terrors Of Finite Nature.

Beauty Through My Senses Stole; I Yielded Myself To The Perfect Whole.

We Judge Of Man's Wisdom By His Hope.

This One Fact The World Hates; That The Soul Becomes; For That Forever Degrades The Past, Turns All Riches To Poverty, All Reputation To A Shame, Confounds The Saint With The Rogue, Shoves Jesus And Judas Equally Aside.

Everything In Creation Has Its Appointed Painter Or Poet And Remains In Bondage Like The Princess In The Fairy Tale 'til Its Appropriate Liberator Comes To Set It Free.

By The Irresistible Maturing Of The General Mind, The Christian Traditions Have Lost Their Hold.

Love And You Shall Be Loved. All Love Is Mathematically Just, As Much As Two Sides Of An Algebraic Equation.

Murder In The Murderer Is No Such Ruinous Thought As Poets And Romancers Will Have It; It Does Not Unsettle Him, Or Fright Him From His Ordinary Notice Of Trifles; It Is An Act Quite Easy To Be Contemplated.

A Sleeping Child Gives Me The Impression Of A Traveler In A Very Far Country.

At Times The Whole World Seems To Be In Conspiracy To Importune You With Emphatic Trifles. Friend, Client, Child, Sickness, Fear, Want, Charity, All Knock At Once At Thy Closet Door And Say,—'come Out Unto Us.' But Keep Thy State; Come Not Into Their Confusion. The Power Men Possess To Annoy Me I Give Them By A Weak Curiosity. No Man Can Come Near Me But Through My Act.

Manners Have Been Somewhat Cynically Defined To Be A Contrivance Of Wise Men To Keep Fools At A Distance. Fashion Is Shrewd To Detect Those Who Do Not Belong To Her Train, And Seldom Wastes Her Attentions. Society Is Very Swift In Its Instincts, And If You Do Not Belong To It, Resists And Sneers At You, Or Quietly Drops You.

The Cannon Will Not Suffer Any Other Sound To Be Heard For Miles And For Years Around It.

Picture And Sculpture Are The Celebrations And Festivities Of Form.

My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life. It Is For Itself And Not For A Spectacle. I Much Prefer That It Should Be Of A Lower Strain, So It Be Genuine And Equal, Than That It Should Be Glittering And Unsteady.

I Can Reason Down Or Deny Everything, Except This Perpetual Belly: Feed He Must And Will, And I Cannot Make Him Respectable.

Trending Author

Stephen Colbert

Category