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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Poet Needs A

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

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.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Friend Is A Person With Whom I May Be Sincere. Before Him I May Think Aloud. I Am Arrived At Last In The Presence Of A Man So Real And Equal, That I May Drop Even Those Undermost Garments Of Dissimulation, Courtesy, And Second Thought, Which Men Never Put Off, And May Deal With Him With The Simplicity And Wholeness With Which One Chemical Atom Meets Another.

Nature Is Upheld By Antagonism. Passions, Resistance, Danger, Are Educators. We Acquire The Strength We Have Overcome.

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

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.

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.

I Am Always Insincere, As Always Knowing There Are Other Moods.

The Thief Steals From Himself. The Swindler Swindles Himself. For The Real Price Is Knowledge And Virtue, Whereof Wealth And Credit Are Signs. These Signs, Like Paper Money, May Be Counterfeited Or Stolen, But That Which They Represent, Namely, Knowledge And Virtue, Cannot Be Counterfeited Or Stolen.

Human Beings Cannot Endure The Geological Chaos They Encounter Under The Soil Of Their Own Gardens.

When A Natural King Becomes A Titular King, Every Body Is Pleased And Satisfied.

I Have Been Told By Persons Of Experience In Matters Of Taste, That The Fashions Follow A Law Of Gradation, And Are Never Arbitrary. The New Mode Is Always Only A Step Onward In The Same Direction As The Last Mode; And A Cultivated Eye Is Prepared For And Predicts The New Fashion.

The Writer Is An Explorer. Every Step Is An Advance Into A New Land.

Every Great Man Is Unique.

Words Are Finite Expressions Of The Infinite Mind.

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 Love That You Withhold Is The Pain That You Carry.

If You Love And Serve Man, You Cannot, By Any Hiding Or Stratagem, Escape Remuneration.

Men Of God Have Always, From Time To Time, Walked Among Men, And Made Their Commission Felt In The Heart And Soul Of The Commonest Hearer.

But I Shall Hear Without Pain, That I Play The Courtier Very Ill, And Talk Of That Which I Do Not Well Understand.

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

Why Need I Volumes, If One Word Suffice?

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.

There Is Something Servile In The Habit Of Seeking After A Law Which We Must Obey.

Cause And Effect Are Two Sides Of One Fact.

Fashion, Though In A Strange Way, Represents All Manly Virtue. It Is Virtue Gone To Seed: It Is A Kind Of Posthumous Honor. It Does Not Often Caress The Great, But The Children Of The Great: It Is A Hall Of The Past.

We Walk Alone In The World. Friends, Such As We Desire, Are Dreams And Fables.

Light Is The First Of Painters. There Is No Object So Foul That Intense Light Will Not Make It Beautiful.

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

Genius Borrows Nobly.

Who Shall Set A Limit To The Influence Of A Human Being?

It Is In Rugged Crises, In Unbearable Endurance, And In Aims Which Put Sympathy Out Of The Question, That The Angel Is Shown.

The Superstition Respecting Power And Office Is Going To The Ground. The Stream Of Human Affairs Flows Its Own Way, And Is Very Little Affected By The Activity Of Legislators. What Great Masses Of Men Wish Done, Will Be Done; And They Do Not Wish It For A Freak, But Because It Is Their State And Natural End.

Talent Finds Its Models, Methods, And Ends In Society, Exists For Exhibition, And Goes To The Soul Only For Power To Work. Genius Is Its Own End, And Draws Its Means And The Style Of Its Architecture From Within.

The World Makes Way For The Man Who Knows Where He Is Going

Examples Are Cited By Soldiers, Of Men Who Have Seen The Cannon Pointed, And The Fire Given To It, And Who Have Stepped Aside From He Path Of The Ball. The Terrors Of The Storm Are Chiefly Confined To The Parlour And The Cabin.

How Much Better When The Whole Land Is A Garden, And The People Have Grown Up In The Bowers Of A Paradise.

Curiosity Is Lying In Wait For Every Secret.

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

A Man Is Reputed To Have Thought And Eloquence; He Cannot, For All That, Say A Word To His Cousin Or His Uncle. They Accuse His Silence With As Much Reason As They Would Blame The Insignificance Of A Dial In The Shade. In The Sun It Will Mark The Hour. Among Those Who Enjoy His Thought, He Will Regain His Tongue.

An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought.

A Man's Growth Is Seen In The Successive Choirs Of His Friends.

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

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

Only Poetry Inspires Poetry.

Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet.

The Torpid Artist Seeks Inspiration At Any Cost, By Virtue Or By Vice, By Friend Or By Fiend, By Prayer Or By Wine.

No One Suspects The Days To Be Gods.

A Man Becomes What He Thinks About Most Of The Time

No Hope So Bright But Is The Beginning Of Its Own Fulfilment.

But Every Jet Of Chaos Which Threatens To Exterminate Us Is Convertible By Intellect Into Wholesome Force. Fate Is Unpenetrated Causes.

Those Who Cannot Tell What They Desire Or Expect, Still Sigh And Struggle With Indefinite Thoughts And Vast Wishes.

When A Man Meets His Make, Society Begins.

True Friends Are Two People Who Are Comfortable Sharing Silence Together.

In Every Landscape, The Point Of Astonishment Is The Meeting Of The Sky And The Earth, And That Is Seen From The First Hillock Aswell As From The Top Of The Alleghanies. The Stars At Night Stoop Down Over The Brownest, Homeliest Common, With All The Spiritual Magnificence Which They Shed On The Campagna, Or On The Marble Deserts Of Egypt.

We Must Be Our Own Before We Can Be Another's.

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

Men Are Better Than This Theology.

The World Is Nothing, The Man Is All; In Yourself Is The Law Of All Nature, And You Know Not Yet How A Globule Of Sap Ascends; In Yourself Slumbers The Whole Of Reason; It Is For You To Know All, It Is For You To Dare All.

Live Well, Learn Plenty, Laugh Often, Love Much.

Pride Can Go Without Domestics, Without Fine Clothes, Can Live In A House With Two Rooms, Can Eat Potato, Purslain, Beans, Lyed Corn, Can Work On The Soil, Can Travel Afoot, Can Talk With Poor Men, Or Sit Silent Well Contented With Fine Saloons. But Vanity Costs Money, Labor, Horses, Men, Women, Health And Peace, And Is Still Nothing At Last; A Long Way Leading Nowhere.--only One Drawback; Proud People Are Intolerably Selfish, And The Vain Are Gentle And Giving.

Let Us Unlearn Our Wisdom Of The World. Let Us Lie Low In The Lord's Power, And Learn That Truth Alone Makes Rich And Great.

Steam Was Till The Other Day The Devil Which We Dreaded. Every Pot Made By Any Human Potter Or Brazier Had A Hole In Its Cover, To Let Off The Enemy, Lest He Should Lift Pot And Roof And Carry The House Away.

All The Facts Of Nature Are Nouns Of The Intellect, And Make The Grammar Of The Eternal Language. Every Word Has A Double, Trebleor Centuple Use And Meaning.

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

Who Leaves The Pine-tree, Leaves His Friend, Unnerves His Strength, Invites His End.

Genius Is Saying What Is In Your Heart, Because It's In Everyone's Heart.

Health Is The Condition Of Wisdom, And The Sign Is Cheerfulness, - An Open And Noble Temper.

Whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist.

Being Different

Science Finds It Methods.

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

Passion Rebuilds The World For The Youth. It Makes All Things Alive And Significant.

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

All The Great Ages Have Been Ages Of Belief.

I Find The Englishman To Be Him Of All Men Who Stands Firmest In His Shoes. They Have In Themselves What They Value In Their Horses, Mettle And Bottom.

And The Glory Of Character Is In Affronting The Horrors Of Depravity To Draw Thence New Nobilities Of Power: As Art Lives And Thrills In New Use And Combining Of Contrasts, And Mining Into The Dark Evermore For Blacker Pits Of Night.

The Whole Of Heraldry And Of Chivalry Is In Courtesy. A Man Of Fine Manners Shall Pronounce Your Name With All The Ornament That Titles Of Nobility Could Ever Add.

The Universal Soul Is The Alone Creator Of The Useful And The Beautiful; Therefore To Make Anything Useful Or Beautiful, The Individual Must Be Submitted To The Universal Mind.

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

The Tendencies Of The Times Favor The Idea Of Self-government, And Leave The Individual, For All Code, To The Rewards And Penalties Of His Own Constitution, Which Work With More Energy Than We Believe, Whilst We Depend On Artificial Restraints.

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

Men Imagine That They Communicate Their Virtue Or Vice Only By Overt Actions, And Do Not See That Virtue Or Vice Emit A Breath Every Moment.

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.

Be Yourself; No Base Imitator Of Another, But Your Best Self. There Is Something Which You Can Do Better Than Another. Listen To The Inward Voice And Bravely Obey That. Do The Things At Which You Are Great, Not What You Were Never Made For.

Truth Is Beautiful Within And Without, Forevermore.

It Is Very Unhappy, But Too Late To Be Helped, The Discovery We Have Made, That We Exist

Experience Is The Only Teacher, And We Get His Lesson Indifferently In Any School.

The Imitator Dooms Himself To Hopeless Mediocrity. The Inventor Did It Because It Was Natural To Him, And So In Him It Has A Charm. In The Imitator Something Else Is Natural, And He Bereaves Himself Of His Own Beauty, To Come Short Of Another Man's.

The Americans Have No Faith, They Rely On The Power Of A Dollar; They Are Deaf To Sentiment.

A Lady With Whom I Was Riding In The Forest Said To Me That The Woods Always Seemed To Her To Wait, As If The Genii Who Inhabit Them Suspend Their Deeds Until The Wayfarer Had Passed Onward; A Thought Which Poetry Has Celebrated In The Dance Of The Fairies, Which Breaks Off On The Approach Of Human Feet.

And Yet--it Is Not Beauty That Inspires The Deepest Passion. Beauty Without Grace Is The Hook Without The Bait. Beauty, Without Expression, Tires.

Human Society Is Made Up Of Partialities. Each Citizen Has An Interest And A View Of His Own, Which, If Followed Out To The Extreme, Would Leave No Room For Any Other Citizen.

Each Mind Has Its Own Method.

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

Fear Is An Instructor Of Great Sagacity, And The Herald Of All Revolutions.

Life Is Short But There Is Always Time For Courtesy.

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.

To Aim To Convert A Man By Miracles Is A Profanation Of The Soul. A True Conversion, A True Christ, Is Now, As Always, To Be Madeby The Reception Of Beautiful Sentiments.

The Hero Is Suffered To Be Himself.

That Which We Call Character Is A Reserved Force Which Acts Directly By Presence, And Without Means. It Is Conceived Of As A Certain Undemonstrable Force, A Familiar Or Genius, By Whose Impulses The Man Is Guided, But Whose Counsels He Cannot Impart.

Washington, Where An Insignificant Individual May Trespass On A Nation's Time.

The Reason Why The World Lacks Unity, And Lies Broken And In Heaps, Is, Because Man Is Disunited With Himself.

The Machine Unmakes The Man. Now That The Machine Is So Perfect, The Engineer Is Nobody.

I Have Only One Doctrine, The Infinitude Of The Private Man.

The Secret Of Success In Society Is A Certain Heartiness And Sympathy.

Secret To Success

So Far As A Person Thinks; They Are Free.

Bare Lists Of Words Are Found Suggestive To An Imaginative And Excited Mind.

We Go To Europe To Be Americanized.

He Is Rich Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded With Fret And Anxiety.

No Great Man Ever Complains Of Want Of Opportunity.

He That Writes To Himself Writes To An Eternal Public. That Statement Only Is Fit To Be Made Public, Which You Have Come At In Attempting To Satisfy Your Own Curiosity.

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

The Right Eloquence Needs No Bell To Call The People Together, And No Constable To Keep Them.

Of Nature Itself Upon The Soul; The Sunrise, The Haze Of Autumn, The Winter Starlight Seem Interlocutors; The Prevailing Sense Is That Of An Exposition In Poetry; A High Discourse, The Voice Of The Speaker Seems To Breathe As Much From The Landscape As From His Own Breast; It Is Nature Communing With The Seer.

To Map Out A Course Of Action And Follow It To An End Requires Some Of The Same Courage That A Soldier Needs.

Conversation In Society Is Found To Be On A Platform So Low As To Exclude Science, The Saint, And The Poet.

Poverty, Frost, Famine, Rain, Disease, Are The Beadles And Guardsmen That Hold Us To Common Sense.

Providence Has A Wild, Rough, Incalculable Road To Its End, And It Is Of No Use To Try To Whitewash Its Huge, Mixed Instrumentalities, Or To Dress Up That Terrific Benefactor In A Clean Shirt And White Neckcloth Of A Student In Divinity.

It Is Not An Arbitrary "decree Of God," But In The Nature Of Man, That A Veil Shuts Down On The Facts Of To-morrow; For The Soul Will Not Have Us Read Any Other Cipher Than That Of Cause And Effect. By This Veil, Which Curtains Events, It Instructs The Children Of Men To Live In To-day.

As Soon As The Man Is At One With God, He Will Not Beg. He Will Then See Prayer In All Action.

My Tongue Is Prone To Lose The Way,not So My Pen, For In A Letterwe Have Not Better Things To Say,but Surely Put Them Better.

You See, It's All Clear, We Were Meant To Be Here From The Beginning.

Were Meant To Be

What You Do Speaks So Loud That I Cannot Hear What You Say.

Eyes Are Bold As Lions,--roving, Running, Leaping, Here And There, Far And Near. They Speak All Languages. They Wait For No Introduction; They Are No Englishmen; Ask No Leave Of Age Or Rank; They Respect Neither Property Nor Riches, Neither Learning Nor Power, Nor Virtue, Nor Sex, But Intrude, And Come Again, And Go Through And Through You In A Moment Of Time. What Inundation Of Life And Thought Is Discharged From One Soul Into Another Through Them!

Fear, When Your Friends Say To You What You Have Done Well, And Say It Through; But When They Stand With Uncertain Timid Looks Of Respect And Half-dislike, And Must Suspend Their Judgement For Years To Come, You May Begin To Hope.

The Meaning Of Good And Bad, Of Better And Worse, Is Simply Helping Or Hurting.

I Wiped Away The Weeds And Foam, I Fetched My Sea-borne Treasures Home.

The Effects Of Opposition Are Wonderful. There Are Men Who Rise Refreshed On Hearing Of A Threat, Men To Whom A Crisis, Which Intimidates And Paralyzes The Majority, Comes As Graceful And Beloved As A Bride!

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

Each Religious Sect Has Its Own Physiognomy. The Methodists Have Acquired A Face; The Quakers, A Face; The Nuns, A Face. An Englishman Will Pick Out A Dissenter By His Manners.

In The Greek Cities, It Was Reckoned Profane, That Any Person Should Pretend A Property In A Work Of Art, Which Belonged To All Who Could Behold It.

There Is Always Safety In Valor.

I Think That The Heroism Which At This Day Would Make On Us The Impression Of Epaminondas And Phocion Must Be That Of A Domestic Conqueror. He Who Shall Bravely And Gracefully Subdue This Gorgon Of Convention And Fashion, And Show Men How To Lead A Clean, Handsome And Heroic Life Amid The Beggarly Elements Of Our Cities And Villages; Whoso Shall Teach Me How To Eat My Meat And Take My Repose And Deal With Men, Without Any Shame Following, Will Restore The Life Of Man To Splendor, And Make His Own Name Dear To All History.

Every Great Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of A Single Man. His Character Determines The Character Of The Organization.

Whoever Fights, Whoever Falls, Justice Conquers Evermore

A Garden Is Like Those Pernicious Machineries Which Catch A Man's Coat-skirt Or His Hand, And Draw In His Arm, His Leg , And His Whole Body To Irresistible Destruction.

The Wise Man In The Storm Prays God Not For Safety From Danger But For Deliverance From Fear. It Is The Storm Within Which Endangers Him[,] Not The Storm Without.

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

In Haydn's Oratorios, The Notes Present To The Imagination Not Only Motions, As, Of The Snake, The Stag, And The Elephant, But Colors Also; As The Green Grass.

The Best University That Can Be Recommended To A Man Of Ideas Is The Gauntlet Of The Mob.

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

If With Love Thy Heart Has Burned; If Thy Love Is Unreturned; Hide Thy Grief Within Thy Breast, Though It Tear Thee Unexpressed.

Things Bring Their Own Philosophy With Them, That Is, Prudence.

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

What's A Book? Everything Or Nothing. The Eye That Sees It All.

I Grieve That Grief Can Teach Me Nothing, Nor Carry Me One Step Into Real Nature.

That Man Is Idle Who Can Do Something Better.

Without A Rich Heart, Wealth Is An Ugly Beggar.

No Man Thoroughly Understands A Truth Until He Has Contended Against It.

The Plays Of Children Are Nonsense, But Very Educative Nonsense. So It Is With The Largest And Solemnest Things, With Commerce, Government, Church, Marriage, And So With The History Of Every Man's Bread, And The Ways By Which He Is To Come By It.

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.

Let Not The Emphasis Of Hospitality Lie In Bed And Board; But Let Truth And Love And Honor And Courtesy Flow In All Thy Deeds.

If A Man Lose His Balance, And Immerse Himself In Any Trades Or Pleasures For Their Own Sake, He May Be A Good Wheel Or Pin, But He Is Not A Cultivated Man.

The Religion Of One Age Is The Literary Entertainment Of The Next.

Silence Is A Solvent That Destroys Personality, And Gives Us Leave To Be Great And Universal.

The World Exists For The Education Of Each Man.

The Truth, The Hope Of Any Time, Must Always Be Sought In Minorities.

What Opium Is Instilled Into All Disaster? It Shows Formidable As We Approach It, But There Is At Last No Rough Rasping Friction,but The Most Slippery Sliding Surfaces. We Fall Soft On A Thought.

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

The Best Picture Makes Us Say, I Am A Painter Also.

Tis Curious That We Only Believe As Deeply As We Live.

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 Arts And Inventions Of Each Period Are Only Its Costume, And Do Not Invigorate Men.

At Present, Man Applies To Nature But Half His Force. He Works On The World With His Understanding Alone. He Lives In It, And Masters It By A Penny-wisdom; And He That Works Most In It, Is But A Half-man, And Whilst His Arms Are Strong And His Digestion Good, His Mind Is Imbruted, And He Is A Selfish Savage.

Tomorrow Is A New Day. You Shall Begin It Well And Serenely

Conversation Is The Laboratory And Workshop Of The Student.

I Hate This Shallow Americanism Which Hopes To Get Rich By Credit, To Get Knowledge By Raps On Midnight Tables, To Learn The Economy Of The Mind By Phrenology, Or Skill Without Study, Or Mastery Without Apprenticeship.

The Gentleman Is A Man Of Truth.

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

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.

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

Persecution Readily Knits Friendship Between Its Victims.

The House Praises The Carpenter.

Language Is A City To The Building Of Which Every Human Being Brought A Stone.

Language And Power

They Who Talk Much Of Destiny, Their Birth-star, Etc., Are In A Lower Dangerous Plane, And Invite The Evils They Fear.

He Who Would Be A Great Soul In The Future, Must Be A Great Soul Now.

The House ...she Lays Her Beams In Music, In Music Everyone, To The Cadence Of The Whirling World Which Dances Around The Sun- That So They Shall Not Be Displaced By Lapses Or By Wars, But For The Love Of Happy Souls Outlive The Newest Stars.

Life Is A Festival Only To The Wise.

I Feel Some Unwillingness To Quit The Remembrance Of The Past. With All The Hope Of The New I Feel That We Are Leaving The Old.

An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought. A Right Action Seems To Fill The Eye, And To Be Related To All Nature.

In Imitation Is A Bit Suicide.

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?

We Walk Alone In The World.

The Walls Of Rude Minds Are Scrawled All Over With Facts, With Thoughts. They Shall One Day Bring A Lantern And Read The Inscriptions.

The Only Prudence In Life Is Concentration.

Focus And Concentration

Society Never Advances. It Recedes As Fast On One Side As It Gains On The Other. It Undergoes Continual Changes: It Is Barbarous, It Is Civilized, It Is Rich, It Is Scientific; But This Change Is Not Amelioration. For Every Thing That Is Given, Something Else Is Taken. Society Acquires New Arts And Loses Old Instincts.

As Long As Our People Quote English Standards They Dwarf Their Own Proportions.

Be An Opener Of Doors For Such As Come After Thee.

Generalization Is Always A New Influx Of Divinity Into The Mind. Hence The Thrill That Attends It.

There Is The Illusion Of Time, Which Is Very Deep; Who Has Disposed Of It? Mor Come To The Conviction That What Seems The Succession Of Thought Is Only The Distribution Of Wholes Into Causal Series.

The Stars Awaken A Certain Reverence, Because Though Always Present, They Are Inaccessible.

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

The Maker Of A Sentence Launches Out Into The Infinite.

Creative Writing

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

Only By Obedience To His Genius; Only By The Freest Activity In The Way Constitutional To Him, Does An Angel Seem To Arise Beforea Man, And Lead Him By The Hand Out Of All The Wards Of The Prison.

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.

In Conversation The Game Is, To Say Something New With Old Words. And You Shall Observe A Man Of The People Picking His Way Along, Step By Step, Using Every Time An Old Boulder, Yet Never Setting His Foot On An Old Place.

Sorrow Makes Us All Children Again.

'tis A Short Sight To Limit Our Faith In Laws To Those Of Gravity, Of Chemistry, Of Botany, And So Forth. Those Laws Do Not Stop Where Our Eyes Lose Them, But Push The Same Geometry And Chemistry Up Into The Invisible Plane Of Social And Rational Life, So That, Look Where We Will, In A Boy's Game, Or In The Strifes Of Races, A Perfect Reaction, A Perpetual Judgment Keeps Watch And Ward.

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.

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

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

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