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The Poet Alone Knows Astronomy, Chemistry, Vegetation, And Animation, For He Does Not Stop At These Facts, But Employs Them As Signs. He Knows Why The Plain, Or Meadow Of Space, Was Strown With These Flowers We Call Suns, And Moons, And Stars; Why The Deep Is Adorned With Animals, With Men, And Gods; For, In Every Word He Speaks He Rides On Them As The Horses Of Thought.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Poet Alone Knows

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Poet Alone Knows Astronomy, Chemistry, Vegetation, And Animation, For He Does Not Stop At These Facts, But Employs Them As Signs. He Knows Why The Plain, Or Meadow Of Space, Was Strown With These Flowers We Call Suns, And Moons, And Stars; Why The Deep Is Adorned With Animals, With Men, And Gods; For, In Every Word He Speaks He Rides On Them As The Horses Of Thought.

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That Which We Persist In Doing Becomes Easier To Do, Not That The Nature Of The Thing Has Changed But That Our Power To Do Has Increased.

The Religions Are Obsolete When The Reforms Do Not Proceed From Them.

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

The World Exists For The Education Of Each Man.

By Going One Step Further Back In Thought, Discordant Opinions Are Reconciled By Being Seen To Be Two Extremes Of One Principle, And We Can Never Go So Far Back As To Preclude A Still Higher Vision.

You've Got To Be Taught, To Hate And Fear, You've Got To Be Taught, From Year To Year, It's Got To Be Drummed In Your Dear Little Ear, You've Got To Be Carefully Taught.

Universities Are Of Course Hostile To Geniuses, Which, Seeing And Using Ways Of Their Own, Discredit The Routine: As Churches And Monasteries Persecute Youthful Saints.

The Present Is An Edifice Which God Cannot Rebuild.

The Element Running Through Entire Nature, Which We Popularly Call Fate, Is Known To Us As Limitation. Whatever Limits Us, We Callfate.

The World Is Full Of Judgment-days, And Into Every Assembly That A Man Enters, In Every Action He Attempts, He Is Gauged And Stamped.

The Scholar May Lose Himself In Schools, In Words, And Become A Pedant; But When He Comprehends His Duties, He Above All Men Is Arealist, And Converses With Things.

The Religions We Call False Were Once True.

You Cannot See The Mountain Near.

The Dead Sleep In Their Moonless Night; My Business Is With The Living.

Religious Literature Has Eminent Examples, And If We Run Over Our Private List Of Poets, Critics, Philanthropists And Philosophers, We Shall Find Them Infected With This Dropsy And Elephantiasis, Which We Ought To Have Tapped.

There Is Always Room For A Man Of Force And He Makes Room For Many. Society Is A Troop Of Thinkers And The Best Heads Among Them Take The Best Places.

A Good Deal Of Our Politics Is Physiological.

Tis Weak And Vicious People Who Cast The Blame On Fate. The Right Use Of Fate Is To Bring Up Our Conduct To The Loftiness Of Nature.

The Dice Of God Are Always Loaded.

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

There Is A Crack In Everything God Has Made

There Is A Third Silent Party To All Our Bargains. The Nature And Soul Of Things Takes On Itself The Guaranty Of The Fulfillment Of Every Contract, So That Honest Service Cannot Come To Loss. If You Serve An Ungrateful Master, Serve Him The More. Put God In Your Debt. Every Stroke Shall Be Repaid. The Longer The Payment Is Withholden, The Better For You; For Compound Interest On Compound Interest Is The Rate And Usage Of This Exchequer.

The Statue Is Then Beautiful When It Begins To Be Incomprehensible, When It Is Passing Out Of Criticism, And Can No Longer Be Defined By Compass And Measuring-wand, But Demands An Active Imagination To Go With It, And To Say What It Is In The Act Of Doing.

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

The Glance Is Natural Magic. The Mysterious Communication Established Across A House Between Two Entire Strangers, Moves All The Springs Of Wonder.

Nature And Literature Are Subjective Phenomena; Every Evil And Every Good Thing Is A Shadow Which We Cast

A Man Makes Inferiors His Superiors By Heat; Self-control Is The Rule.

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

The Babe In Arms Is A Channel Through Which The Energies We Call Fate, Love, And Reason Visibly Stream.

The Trail Of The Serpent Reaches Into All The Lucrative Professions And Practices Of Man. Each Has Its Own Wrongs. Each Finds A Tender And Very Intelligent Conscience A Disqualification For Success. Each Requires Of The Practitioner A Certain Shutting Of The Eyes, A Certain Dapperness And Compliance, An Acceptance Of Customs, A Sequestration From The Sentiments Of Generosity And Love, A Compromise Of Private Opinion And Lofty Integrity.

And Dazzling Memory Revive.refresh The Faded Tints, Recut The Aged Prints, And Write My Old Adventures, With The Pen Which, On The First Day, Drew Upon The Tablets Blue The Dancing Pleiads, And The Eternal Men.

America Is A Country Of Young Men.

Truth Has Not Single Victories; All Things Are Its Organs,--not Only Dust And Stones, But Errors And Lies.

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.

A Painter Told Me That Nobody Could Draw A Tree Without In Some Sort Becoming A Tree; Or Draw A Child By Studying The Outlines Of Its Form Merely But By Watching For A Time His Motions And Plays, The Painter Enters Into His Nature And Can Then Draw Him At Every Attitude.

People Say Law But They Mean Wealth.

But Wise Men Pierce This Rotten Diction And Fasten Words Again To Visible Things; So That Picturesque Language Is At Once A Commanding Certificate That He Who Employs It, Is A Man In Alliance With Truth And God.

For All Symbols Are Fluxional; All Language Is Vehicular And Transitive, And Is Good, As Ferries And Horses Are, For Conveyance, Not As Farms And Houses Are, For Homestead.

It Is The Duty Of Men To Judge Men Only By Their Actions. Our Faculties Furnish Us With No Means Of Arriving At The Motive, The Character, The Secret Self. We Call The Tree Good From Its Fruits, And The Man, From His Works.

Science In England, In America, Is Jealous Of Theory, Hates The Name Of Love And Moral Purpose. There's Revenge For This Humanity.what Manner Of Man Does Science Make? The Boy Is Not Attracted. He Says, I Do Not Wish To Be Such A Kind Of Man As My Professor Is.

Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet. Then All Things Are At Risk. It Is As When A Conflagration Has Broken Out In A Great City, And No Man Knows What Is Safe, Or Where It Will End.

The Imagination And The Senses Cannot Be Gratified At The Same Time.

Society Gains Nothing Whilst A Man, Not Himself Renovated, Attempts To Renovate Things Around Him; He Has Become Tediously Good Insome Particular But Negligent Or Narrow In The Rest; And Hypocrisy And Vanity Are Often The Disgusting Result.

If You Would Lift Me Up, You've Got To Be On Higher Ground.

In The Matter Of Religion, People Eagerly Fasten Their Eyes On The Difference Between Their Own Creed And Yours; Whilst The Charm Of The Study Is In Finding The Agreements And Identities In All The Religions Of Humanity.

The Leaves Are Falling, Falling As From Way Off, As Though Far Gardens Withered In The Skies; They Are Falling With Denying Gestures. And In The Nights The Heavy Earth Is Falling From All The Stars Down Into Loneliness. We All Are Falling. This Hand Falls. And Look At Others: It Is In Them All. And Yet There Is One Who Holds This Falling Endlessly Gently In His Hands.

Noblesse Oblige; Or, Superior Advantages Bind You To Larger Generosity.

The Kitchen Clock Is More Convenient Than Sidereal Time. We Must Use The Popular Category, As We Do By The Linnæan Classification, For Convenience, And Not As Exact And Final. Otherwise, We Are Presently Confounded, When The Best-settled Traits Of One Race Are Claimed By Some New Ethnologist As Precisely Characteristic Of The Rival Tribe.

When It's Darkest, Men See The Stars.

Hast Thou Named All The Birds Without A Gun?

Faith And Love Are Apt To Be Spasmodic In The Best Minds: Men Live On The Brink Of Mysteries And Harmonies Into Which Yet They Never Enter, And With Their Hand On The Doorlatch They Die Outside.

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

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

An Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of One Man; As, Monachism Of The Hermit Anthony, The Reformation Of Luther, Quakerism Of Fox, Methodism Of Wesley, Abolition Of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton Called "the Height Of Rome;" And All History Resolves Itself Easily Into The Biography Of A Few Stout And Earnest Persons. Let A Man, Then, Know His Worth, And Keep Things Under His Feet.

The Finest Poetry Was First Experience.

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

The Person Who Screams, Or Uses The Superlative Degree, Or Converses With Heat Puts Whole Drawing-rooms To Flight. If You Wish To Be Loved, Love Measure.

He Is Great Who Confers The Most Benefits.

Law Rules Throughout Existence, A Law Which Is Not Intelligent, But Intelligence.

O Lord! Unhappy Is The Man Whom Man Can Make Unhappy.

There Is A Genius Of A Nation, Which Is Not To Be Found In The Numerical Citizens, But Which Characterizes The Society.

Use What Language You Will, You Can Never Say Anything But What You Are.

Throb Thine With Nature's Throbbing Breast.

I Cannot Often Enough Say, That A Man Is Only A Relative And Representative Nature. Each Is A Hint Of The Truth, But Far Enough From Being That Truth, Which Yet He Quite Newly And Inevitably Suggests To Us. If I Seek It In Him, I Shall Not Find It.

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.

No Matter How Much Faculty Of Idle Seeing A Man Has, The Step From Knowing To Doing Is Rarely Taken.

Thou Art To Me A Delicious Torment.

Allow Yourself To Trust Joy And Embrace It. You Will Find You Dance With Everything.

The Indian Who Was Laid Under A Curse, That The Wind Should Not Blow On Him, Nor Water Flow To Him, Nor Fire Burn Him, Is A Type Of Us All. The Dearest Events Are Summer-rain, And We The Para Coats That Shed Every Drop. Nothing Is Left Us Now But Death. We Look To That With A Grim Satisfaction, Saying, There At Least Is Reality That Will Not Dodge Us.

Wise Men Are Not Wise At All Times.

God Said, I Am Tired Of Kings, I Suffer Them No More; Up To My Ear This Morning Brings The Outrage Of The Poor.

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

America Is Another Name For Opportunity.

Every Man Has A Choice Between Love Of Truth And Love Of Repose. Love Of Repose Brings Him A Solid Reputation And Peaceful Life; Love Of Truth Keeps Him In Suspense. A Man Who Loves Truth Respects The Highest Law Of His Being.

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.

I Think I Have Done Well, If I Have Acquired A New Word From A Good Author; And My Business With Him Is To Find My Own, Though Itwere Only To Melt Him Down Into An Epithet Or An Image For Daily Use.

I Suppose Every Old Scholar Has Had The Experience Of Reading Something In A Book Which Was Significant To Him, But Which He Could Never Find Again. Sure He Is That He Read It There, But No One Else Ever Read It, Nor Can He Find It Again, Though He Buy The Book And Ransack Every Page.

Let Us Learn The Meaning Of Economy. Economy Is A High Human Office,--a Sacrament When Its Aim Is Grand, When It Is The Prudence Of Simple Tastes, When It Is Practised For Freedom Or For Love Or Devotion.

The Whole Value Of The Dime Is In Knowing What To Do With It.

Culture Is One Thing And Varnish Is Another.

The Englishman Who Has Lost His Fortune Is Said To Have Died Of A Broken Heart.

No Man Can Have Society Upon His Own Terms.

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

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

Our Chief Want Is Someone Who Will Inspire Us To Be What We Know We Could Be.

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

Let Us Be Silent — So We May Hear The Whisper Of The Gods.

Books Are The Best Of Things If Well Used; If Abused, Among The Worst. They Are Good For Nothing But To Inspire. I Had Better Never See A Book Than Be Warped By Its Attraction Clean Out Of My Own Orbit, And Made A Satellite Instead Of A System.

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.

If You Would Not Be Known To Do Anything, Never Do It.

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.

Valor Consists In The Power Of Self-recovery, So That A Man Cannot Have His Flank Turned, Cannot Be Out-generalled, But Put Him Where You Will, He Stands.

Life Is In Short Cycles Or Periods; We Are Quickly Tired, But We Have Rapid Rallies. A Man Is Spent By His Work, Starved, Prostrate; He Will Not Lift His Hand To Save His Life; He Can Never Think More. He Sinks Into Deep Sleep And Wakes With Renewed Youth, With Hope, Courage, Fertile In Resources, And Keen For Daring Adventure.

Adopt The Pace Of Nature: Her Secret Is Patience.

My Garden Is A Forest Ledge Which Older Forest S Bound; The Banks Slope Down To The Blue Lake-edge, Then Plunge To Depths Profound!

We Are As Much Strangers In Nature, As We Are Aliens From God. We Do Not Understand The Notes Of Birds. The Fox And The Deer Run Away From Us; The Bear And Tiger Rend Us. We Do Not Know The Uses Of More Than A Few Plants, As Corn And The Apple, The Potato And The Vine. Is Not The Landscape, Every Glimpse Of Which Hath A Grandeur, A Face Of Him?

No Man Ever Prayed Heartily Without Learning Something.

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.

The Poet Needs A Ground In Popular Tradition On Which He May Work, And Which, Again, May Restrain His Art Within The Due Temperance. It Holds Him To The People, Supplies A Foundation For His Edifice; And, In Furnishing So Much Work Done To His Hand, Leaves Him At Leisure, And In Full Strength For The Audacities Of His Imagination.

Plant Your Dreams And Miracles Will Grow.

The Rage For Road Building Is Beneficent For America, Where Vast Distance Is So Main A Consideration In Our Domestic Politics Andtrade, Inasmuch As The Great Political Promise Of The Invention Is To Hold The Union Staunch, Whose Days Already Seem Numbered By The Mere Inconvenience Of Transporting Representatives, Judges And Officers Across Such Tedious Distances Of Land And Water.

When The Eyes Say One Thing, And The Tongue Another, A Practiced Man Relies On The Language Of The First.

Man Exists For His Own Sake And Not To Add A Laborer To The State.

Reality Is A Sliding Door.

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.

Great Men Exist That There Might Be Greater Men.

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

What Is Civilization? I Answer, The Power Of Good Women.

Let Me Admonish You, First Of All, To Go Alone; To Refuse The Good Models, Even Those Which Are Sacred In The Imagination Of Men, And Dare To Love God Without Mediator Or Veil.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage.

The Best Nations Are Those Most Widely Related; And Navigation, As Effecting A World-wide Mixture, Is The Most Potent Advancer Ofnations.

Conservatism Stands On Man's Confessed Limitations; Reform On His Indisputable Infinitude; Conservatism On Circumstance; Liberalism On Power; One Goes To Make An Adroit Member Of The Social Frame; The Other To Postpone All Things To The Man Himself.

The Men Who Carry Their Points Do Not Need To Inquire Of Their Constituents What They Should Say, But Are Themselves The Country Which They Represent: Nowhere Are Its Emotions Or Opinions So Instant And So True As In Them; Nowhere So Pure From A Selfish Infusion.

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

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

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

The Only Thing That Can Grow Is The Thing You Give Energy To.

There Is One Topic Peremptorily Forbidden To All Well-bred, To All Rational Mortals, Namely, Their Distempers.

Flowers Are The Earth Laughing.

There Is No Doctrine Of The Reason Which Will Bear To Be Taught By The Understanding.

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

The Young Men Were Born With Knives In Their Brain, A Tendency To Introversion, Self-dissection, Anatomizing Of Motives.

Very Few Of Our Race Can Be Said To Be Yet Finished Men. We Still Carry Sticking To Us Some Remains Of The Preceding Inferior Quadruped Organization. We Call These Millions Men; But They Are Not Yet Men. Half-engaged In The Soil, Pawing To Get Free, Man Needs All The Music That Can Be Brought To Disengage Him.

A Man Is Related To All Nature.

The Time Is Coming When All Men Will See That The Gift Of God To The Soul Is Not A Vaunting, Overpowering, Excluding Sanctity, Buta Sweet, Natural Goodness, A Goodness Like Thine And Mine, And That So Invites Thine And Mine To Be And To Grow.

Improve Your Spare Moments And They Will Become The Brightest Gems In Your Life.

An Imaginative Book Renders Us Much More Service At First, By Stimulating Us Through Its Tropes, Than Afterward, When We Arrive Atthe Precise Sense Of The Author. I Think Nothing Is Of Any Value In Books, Excepting The Transcendental And Extraordinary.

Pride Ruined The Angels.

The Horseman Serves The Horse, The Neat-herd Serves The Neat, The Merchant Serves The Purse, The Eater Serves His Meat; 'tis The Day Of The Chattel, Web To Weave, And Corn To Grind, Things Are In The Saddle, And Ride Mankind.

Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But The Triumph Of Principles.

If I Have Renounced The Search Of Truth, If I Have Come Into The Port Of Some Pretending Dogmatism, Some New Church, Some Schelling Or Cousin, I Have Died To All Use Of These New Events That Are Born Out Of Prolific Time Into Multitude Of Life Every Hour. I Am As Bankrupt To Whom Brilliant Opportunities Offer In Vain. He Has Just Foreclosed His Freedom, Tied His Hands, Locked Himself Up And Given The Key To Another To Keep.

A Song Is No Song Unless The Circumstance Is Free And Fine. If A Singer Sing From A Sense Of Duty Or From Seeing No Way To Escape,i Had Rather Have None. Those Only Can Sleep Who Do Not Care To Sleep; And Those Only Write Or Speak Best Who Do Not Too Much Respect The Writing Or The Speaking.

It Is Easy To Live For Others, Everybody Does. I Call On You To Live For Yourself.

The Force Of Character Is Cumulative.

A Poem Is Made Up Of Thoughts, Each Of Which Filled The Whole Sky Of The Poet In Its Turn.

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.

The Good Writer Seems To Be Writing About Himself, But Has His Eye Always On That Thread Of The Universe Which Runs Through Himself And All Things.

Labor Is God's Education.

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies. Their Cousins Can Tell You Nothing About Them. They Lived In Their Writings, And Sotheir House And Street Life Was Trivial And Commonplace. If You Would Know Their Tastes And Complexions, The Most Admiring Of Their Readers Most Resembles Them.

The Populace Drags Down The Gods To Their Own Level.

Astronomy To The Selfish Becomes Astrology.

Anatomy And Physiology

The Manly Part Is To Do With Might And Main What You Can Do.

Life Is Girt All Round With A Zodiac Of Sciences, The Contributions Of Men Who Have Perished To Add Their Point Of Light To Our Sky. ... These Road-makers On Every Hand Enrich Us. We Must Extend The Area Of Life And Multiply Our Relations. We Are As Much Gainers By Finding A Property In The Old Earth As By Acquiring A New Planet.

Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth.

The Intellect Is Vagabond, And Our System Of Education Fosters Restlessness. Our Minds Travel When Our Bodies Are Forced To Stay At Home. We Imitate; And What Is Imitation But The Travelling Of The Mind?

If You Act, You Show Character; If You Sit Still, You Show It; If You Sleep You Show It.

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.

The Gentleman Is A Man Of Truth, Lord Of His Own Actions, And Expressing That Lordship In His Behavior, Not In Any Manner Dependent And Servile Either On Persons, Or Opinions, Or Possessions.

There Are Books... Which Rank In Our Life With Parents And Lovers And Passionate Experiences.

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.

The Wise And Just Man Will Always Feel That He Stands On His Own Feet; That He Imparts Strength To The State, Not Receives Security From It; And If All Went Down, He And Such As He Would Quite Easily Combine In A New And Better Constitution.

Europe Extends To The Alleghenies; America Lies Beyond.

Nature Is Full Of Freaks, And Now Puts An Old Head On Young Shoulders, And Then Takes A Young Heart Heating Under Fourscore Winters.

Man Is Not A Farmer, Or A Professor, Or An Engineer, But He Is All. Man Is Priest, And Scholar, And Statesman, And Producer, And Soldier.

Wise Men Read Very Sharply All Of Your Private History In Your Look And Gait And Behavior.

Liberty Is A Slow Fruit.

We See Young Men Who Owe Us A New World, So Readily And Lavishly They Promise, But They Never Acquit The Debt; They Die Young Anddodge The Account: Or If They Live, They Lose Themselves In The Crowd.

When He Is Pushed, Tormented, Defeated, He Has A Chance To Learn Something; ... He Learns His Ignorance, Is Cured Of The Insanity Of Conceit; Has Got Moderation And Real Skill.

Earth Laughs In Flowers.

Give The Slave The Least Elevation Of Religious Sentiment, And He Is Not Slave: You Are The Slave: He Not Only In His Humility Feels His Superiority, Feels That Much Deplored Condition Of His To Be A Fading Trifle, But He Makes You Feel It Too. He Is The Master.

Marriage Is The Perfection Which Love Aimed At, Ignorant Of What It Sought.

Spurious Prudence, Making The Senses Final, Is The God Of Sots And Cowards, And Is The Subject Of All Comedy. It Is Nature's Joke, And Therefore Literature's. True Prudence Limits This Sensualism By Admitting The Knowledge Of An Internal And Real World.

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

In Private Places, Among Sordid Objects, An Act Of Truth Or Heroism Seems At Once To Draw To Itself The Sky As Its Temple, The Sun As Its Cradle. Nature Stretches Out Her Arms To Embrace Man, Only Let His Thoughts Be Of Equal Greatness.

Don't Choose The Better Person, Choose The Person Who Makes A Better You.

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

Give All To Love; Obey Thy Heart.

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken. The Whole Human Family Is Bathed With An Element Of Love Like A Fine Ether. How Many Persons We Meet In Houses, Whom We Scarcely Speak To, Whom Yet We Honor And Who Honor Us! How Many We See In The Street, Or Sit With In Church, Whom Though Silently, We Warmly Rejoice To Be With! Read The Language Of These Wandering Eye-beams. The Heart Knoweth.

The Moment We Indulge Our Affections, The Earth Is Metamorphosed.

There The Great Planter Plants Of Fruitful Worlds The Grain, And With A Million Spells Enchants The Souls That Walk In Pain.

To Be Great Is To Be Misunderstood.

Nature Tells Every Secret Once.

What School, College, Or Lecture Bring Men Depends On What Men Bring To Carry It Home In.

Our Friendships Hurry To Short And Poor Conclusions, Because We Have Made Them A Texture Of Wine And Dreams, Instead Of The Toughfibre Of The Human Heart. The Laws Of Friendship Are Austere And Eternal, Of One Web With The Laws Of Nature And Of Morals.

The Constructive Intellect [genius] Produces Thoughts, Sentences, Poems, Plans, Designs, Systems. It Is The Generation Of The Mind, The Marriage Of Thought With Nature.

Nature And Books Belong To The Eyes That See Them. It Depends On The Mood Of The Man, Whether He Shall See The Sunset Or The Fine Poem. There Are Always Sunsets, And There Is Always Genius; But Only A Few Hours So Serene That We Can Relish Nature Or Criticism. The More Or Less Depends On Structure Or Temperament. Temperament Is The Iron Wire On Which The Beads Are Strung. Of What Use Is Fortune Or Talent To A Cold And Defective Store?

Nothing In Nature Is Exhausted In Its First Use...in God, Every End Is Converted Into A New Means.

Masses Are Rude, Lame, Unmade, Pernicious In Their Demands And Influence, And Need Not To Be Flattered, But To Be Schooled. I Wish Not To Concede Anything To Them, But To Tame, Drill, Divide, And Break Them Up, And Draw Individuals Out Of Them.

Go Into One Of Our Cool Churches, And Begin To Count The Words That Might Be Spared, And In Most Places The Entire Sermon Will Go.

If You Are Wise, You Will Dread A Prosperity Which Only Loads You With More.

Genius Is Intellect Constructive.

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

When It's Dark Enough Men See Stars.

The World Is So Beautiful That I Can Hardly Believe It Exists.

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

Every Individual Strives To Grow And Exclude, To The Extremities Of The Universe, And To Impose The Law Of Its Being On Every Other Creature.

The Genius Of The Platonists, Is Intoxicating To The Student, Yet How Few Particulars Of It Can I Detach From All Their Books.

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

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise.

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

The Glory Of Friendship Is Not The Outstretched Hand, Not The Kindly Smile, Nor The Joy Of Companionship; It Is The Spiritual Inspiration That Comes To One When You Discover That Someone Else Believes In You And Is Willing To Trust You With A Friendship.

The Narrow Sectarian Cannot Read Astronomy With Impunity. The Creeds Of His Church Shrivel Like Dried Leaves At The Door Of The Observatory.

For Every Seeing Soul, There Are Two Absorbing Facts - I, And The Abyss.

Every Heroic Act Measures Itself By Its Contempt Of Some External Good. But It Finds Its Own Success At Last, And Then The Prudent Also Extol.

So Nigh Is Grandeur To Our Dust, So Near Is God To Man, When Duty Whispers Low, 'thou Must,' The Youth Whispers, 'i Can.

The Crowning Fortune Of A Man Is To Be Born To Some Pursuit Which Finds Him Employment And Happiness, Whether It Be To Make Baskets, Or Broadswords, Or Canals, Or Statues, Or Songs.

Blessed Are Those Who Have No Talent!

Blessed Are Those

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

Do Not Fear To Put Novels Into The Hands Of Young People As An Occasional Holiday Experiment, But Above All, Good Poetry In All Kinds,--epic, Tragedy, Lyric. If We Can Touch The Imagination, We Serve Them; They Will Never Forget It.

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