Background Image

...

The Poise Of A Plant, The Bended Tree Recovering Itself From The Strong Wind, The Vital Resources Of Every Vegetable And Animal, Are Also Demonstrations Of The Self-sufficing, And Therefore Self-relying Soul. All History From Its Highest To Its Trivial Passages Is The Various Record Of This Power.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Poise Of A

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

The Poise Of A Plant, The Bended Tree Recovering Itself From The Strong Wind, The Vital Resources Of Every Vegetable And Animal, Are Also Demonstrations Of The Self-sufficing, And Therefore Self-relying Soul. All History From Its Highest To Its Trivial Passages Is The Various Record Of This Power.

Views: 34278

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

If We Consider What Happens In Conversation, In Reveries, In Remorse, In Times Of Passion, In Surprises, In The Instructions Of Dreams, Wherein Often We See Ourselves In Masquerade,--the Droll Disguises Only Magnifying And Enhancing A Real Element, And Forcing It On Our Distinct Notice,--we Shall Catch Many Hints That Will Broaden And Lighten Into Knowledge Of The Secret Of Nature.

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

When We Have Arrived At The Question, The Answer Is Already Near.

The Solar System Has No Anxiety About Its Reputation.

Very Idle Is All Curiosity Concerning Other People's Estimate Of Us, And All Fear Of Remaining Unknown Is Not Less So.

Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today. Let Us Treat Men And Women Well; Treat Them As If They Were Real; Perhaps They Are.

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.

Let A Man Behave In His Own House As A Guest.

God Will Have Life To Be Real; We Will Be Damned, But It Shall Be Theatrical.

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

The Possibility Of Interpretation Lies In The Identity Of The Observer With The Observed. Each Material Thing Has Its Celestial Side; Has Its Translation, Through Humanity, Into The Spiritual And Necessary Sphere, Where It Plays A Part As Indestructible As Any Other.

Friends Should Be Like Books, Easy To Find When You Need Them, But Seldom Used.

What We Do Not Call Education Is More Precious Than That Which We Call So. We Form No Guess, At The Time Of Receiving A Thought, Of Its Comparative Value. And Education Often Wastes Its Effort In Attempts To Thwart And Balk This Natural Magnetism, Which Is Sure To Select What Belongs To It.

The Secret Of Success Lies Never In The Amount Of Money, But In The Relation Of Income To Outgo.

In Our Mechanics' Fair, There Must Be Not Only Bridges, Ploughs, Carpenter's Planes, And Baking Troughs, But Also Some Few Finer Instruments,--rain-gauges, Thermometers, And Telescopes; And In Society, Besides Farmers, Sailors, And Weavers, There Must Be A Few Persons Of Purer Fire Kept Specially As Gauges And Meters Of Character; Persons Of A Fine, Detecting Instinct, Who Note The Smallest Accumulations Of Wit And Feeling In The Bystander.

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

Look Out! Behind You!

The Cheapness Of Man Is Every Day's Tragedy.

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

The Etymologist Finds The Deadest Word To Have Been Once A Brilliant Picture. Language Is Fossil Poetry. As The Limestone Of The Continent Consists Of Infinite Masses Of The Shells Of Animalcules, So Language Is Made Up Of Images Or Tropes, Which Now, In Their Secondary Use, Have Long Ceased To Remind Us Of Their Poetic Origin.

Exaggeration Is In The Course Of Things. Nature Sends No Creature, No Man Into The World, Without Adding A Small Excess Of His Proper Quality. Given The Planet, It Is Still Necessary To Add The Impulse; So, To Every Creature Nature Added A Little Violence Of Direction In Its Proper Path, A Shove To Put It On Its Way; In Every Instance, A Slight Generosity, A Drop Too Much.

Exaggeration Is

A Man In Debt Is So Far A Slave.

Wherever Snow Falls, Or Water Flows, Or Birds Fly, Wherever Day And Night Meet In Twilight, Wherever The Blue Heaven Is Hung By Clouds, Or Sown With Stars, Wherever Are Forms With Transparent Boundaries, Wherever Are Outlets Into Celestial Space, Wherever Is Danger, And Awe, And Love, There Is Beauty, Plenteous As Rain, Shed For Thee, And Though Thou Shouldest Walk The World Over, Thou Shalt Not Be Able To Find A Condition Inopportune Or Ignoble.

Delicious Is A Just And Firm Encounter Of Two In A Thought, In A Feeling.

Insist On Yourself. Never Imitate.

The Idealism Of Berkeley Is Only A Crude Statement Of The Idealism Of Jesus, And That Again Is A Crude Statement Of The Fact Thatall Nature Is The Rapid Efflux Of Goodness Executing And Organizing Itself.

Two Sorts Of Writers Possess Genius: Those Who Think, And Those Who Cause Others To Think.

It Is A Capital Blunder; As You Discover, When Another Man Recites His Charities.

Character Wants Room; Must Not Be Crowded On By Persons, Nor Be Judged From Glimpses Got In The Press Of Affairs, Or On Few Occasions. It Needs Perspective, As A Great Building.

Morality Is The Object Of Government.

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

Religion Must Always Be A Crab Fruit; It Cannot Be Grafted, And Keep Its Wild Beauty.

What Goes On Around You... Compares Little With What Goes On Inside You.

The Poet Knows That He Speaks Adequately, Then, Only When He Speaks Somewhat Wildly.

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.

Unhappily, No Man Exists Who Has Not In His Own Person Become, To Some Amount, A Stockholder In The Sin, And So Made Himself Liable To A Share In The Expiation.

The Preamble Of Thought, The Transition Through Which It Passes From The Unconscious To The Conscious, Is Action. Only So Much Do I Know, As I Have Lived. Instantly We Know Whose Words Are Loaded With Life, And Whose Not.

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

All The Thoughts Of A Turtle Are Turtle

Every Sweet Has Its Sour; Every Evil Its Good.

All Successful Men Have Agreed In One Thing -- They Were Causationists. They Believed That Things Went Not By Luck, But By Law; That There Was Not A Weak Or A Cracked Link In The Chain That Joins The First And Last Of Things.

Pain Is Superficial, And Therefore Fear Is. The Torments Of Martyrdoms Are Probably Most Keenly Felt By The By-standers.

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

What Is Well Done, I Feel As If I Did; What Is Ill-done, I Reck Not Of.

History Is The Action And Reaction Of These Two, Nature And Thought.

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.

Natural Science Sharpens The Discrimination. There Is No False Logic In Nature. All Its Properties Are Permanent: The Acids And Metals Never Lie; Their Yea Is Yea, Their Nay, Nay. They Are Newly Discovered But Not New.

By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote.

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.

But It Is A Cold, Lifeless Business When You Go To The Shops To Buy Something, Which Does Not Represent Your Life And Talent, But A Goldsmith's.

Every Man Is A Consumer, And Ought To Be A Producer. He Is By Constitution Expensive, And Needs To Be Rich.

The Kingdom Of Man Over Nature, Which Cometh Not With Observation,--a Dominion Such As Now Is Beyond His Dream Of God,--he Shall Enter Without More Wonder Than The Blind Man Feels Who Is Gradually Restored To Perfect Sight.

New York Is A Sucked Orange.

Some People Will Tell You There Is A Great Deal Of Poetry And Fine Sentiment In A Chest Of Tea.

The Whole Constitution Of Property On Its Present Tenures, Is Injurious, And Its Influence On Persons Deteriorating And Degrading.

The Remedy For All Blunders, The Cure Of Blindness, The Cure Of Crime, Is Love.

Crossing A Bare Common, In Snow Puddles At Twilight, Under A Clouded Sky, Without Having In My Thoughts Any Occurrence Of Special Good Fortune, I Have Enjoyed Perfect Exhilaration. I Am Glad To The Brink Of Fear.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Practical Poet, Taming Her Savage Mate, Planting Tenderness, Hope And Eloquence In All Whom She Approaches.

If The Red Slayer Think He Slays, Or If The Slain Think He Is Slain, They Know Not Well The Subtle Ways, I Keep And Pass And Turn Again.

That Man Is Idle Who Can Do Something Better.

My Own Mind Is The Direct Revelation Which I Have From God And Far Least Liable To Mistake In Telling His Will Of Any Revelation.

There Is Ever A Slight Suspicion Of The Burlesque About Earnest Good Men.

Knowledge Is The Knowing That We Cannot Know.

An Expense Of Ends To Means Is Fate;morganization Tyrannizing Over Character. The Menagerie, Or Forms And Powers Of The Spine, Is A Book Of Fate: The Bill Of The Bird, The Skull Of The Snake, Determines Tyrannically Its Limits.

There Can Be No High Civility Without A Deep Morality, Though It May Not Always Call Itself By That Name.

Jesus Christ Belonged To The True Race Of The Prophets. He Saw With An Open Eye The Mystery Of The Soul. . Alone In All History He Estimated The Greatness Of Man.

The Landscape Belongs To The Person Who Looks At It..." -ralph Waldo Emerson

You Think That Your Silence On Certain Topics, Perhaps In The Face Of Injustice, Or Unkindness, Or Mean-spiritedness, Causes Others To Reserve Judgement Of You. Far Otherwise; Your Silence Utters Very Loud: You Have No Oracle To Speak, No Wisdom To Offer, And Your Fellow Men Have Learned That You Cannot Help Them. Doth Not Wisdom Cry, And Understanding Put Forth Her Voice? We Would Be Well To Do Likewise.

Music Causes Us To Think Eloquently.

People Destined To Meet Will Do So, Apparently By Chance, At Precisely The Right Moment.

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.

We Must Leave Our Pets At Home, When We Go Into The Street, And Meet Men On Broad Grounds Of Good Meaning And Good Sense.

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.

Every Man Is As Lazy As He Dares To Be.

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

Performing On A Stool, We've Got A Sight To Make You Drool, Seven Virgins And A Mule, Keep It Cool, Keep It Cool.

Without A Rich Heart, Wealth Is An Ugly Beggar.

Poverty Demoralizes. A Man In Debt Is So Far A Slave; And Wall-street Thinks It Easy For A Millionaire To Be A Man Of His Word, Aman Of Honor, But, That, In Failing Circumstances, No Man Can Be Relied On To Keep His Integrity.

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

Who Is He That Shall Control Me? Why May Not I Act And Speak And Write And Think With Entire Freedom? What Am I To The Universe, Or, The Unvierse, What Is It To Me? Who Hath Forged The Chains Of Wrong And Right, Of Opinion And Custom? And Must I Wear Them?

A Scholar Is A Man With His Inconvenience, That, When You Ask Him His Opinion Of Any Matter, He Must Go Home And Look Up His Manuscripts To Know.

Prosperity Is Something The Businessmen Created For Politicians To Take Credit For

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

We Are Made Aware That Magnitude Of Material Things Is Relative, And All Objects Shrink And Expand To Serve The Passion Of The Poet. Thus, In His Sonnets, The Lays Of Birds, The Scents And Dyes Of Flowers, He Finds To Be The Shadow Of His Beloved; Time, Which Keeps Her From Him, Is His Chest; The Suspicion She Has Awakened, Is Her Ornament

Let Us Be Poised, Wise And Our Own Today.

Wise Men Are Not Wise At All Times.

Difference Of Opinion Is The One Crime Which Kings Never Forgive.

If I Should Go Out Of Church Whenever I Hear A False Statement I Could Never Stay There Five Minutes. But Why Come Out? The Streetis As False As The Church, And When I Get To My House, Or To My Manners, Or To My Speech, I Have Not Got Away From The Lie.

In The Right Hands, Literature Is Not Resorted To As A Consolation, And By The Broken And Decayed, But As A Decalogue.

Our Opinions Of The World, Are Confessions Of Character.

The Good Rain, Like A Bad Preacher, Does Not Know When To Leave Off.

Be Sure Then To Read No Mean Books. Shun The Spawn Of The Press On The Gossip Of The Hour. Do Not Read What You Shall Learn, Without Asking, In The Street And The Train.

Every Man Should Let Out All The Length Of All The Reigns; Should Find Or Make A Frank And Healthy Expression Of What Force And Meaning Is In Him.

Nature Hates Monopolies And Exceptions.

From Within Or From Behind, A Light Shines Through Us Upon Things, And Makes Us Aware That We Are Nothing, But The Light Is All.

Slavery Is An Institution For Converting Men Into Monkeys.

You Never Know How You Look Through Other People's Eyes.

Though Your Views Are In Straight Antagonism To Theirs, Assume An Identity Of Sentiment, Assume That You Are Saying Precisely Thatwhich All Think, And In The Flow Of Wit And Love Roll Out Your Paradoxes In Solid Column, With Not The Infirmity Of A Doubt.

Broader And Deeper We Must Write Our Annals, From An Ethical Reformation, From An Influx Of The Ever New, Ever Sanative Conscience, If We Would Trulier Express Our Central And Wide-related Nature, Instead Of This Old Chronology Of Selfishness And Pride To Which We Have Too Long Lent Our Eyes. Already That Day Exists For Us, Shines In On Us At Unawares, But The Path Of Science And Of Letters Is Not The Way Into Nature. The Idiot, The Indian, The Child, And Unschooled Farmer's Boy, Stand Nearer To The Light By Which Nature Is To Be Read, Than The Dissector Or The Antiquary.

See Only That Thou Work And Thou Canst Not Escape The Reward.

The True Test Of Civilization Is Not The Census, Nor The Size Of Cities, Nor The Crops - No, But The Kind Of Man The Country Turns Out.

A Man Is The Whole Encyclopedia Of Facts. The Creation Of A Thousand Forests Is In One Acorn, And Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, Lie Folded Already In The First Man.

The Question Is Whether [suicide] Is The Way Out, Or The Way In.

Wherever There Is Failure, There Is Some Giddiness, Some Superstition About Luck, Some Step Omitted, Which, Nature Never Pardons.

Truth Is Always Present; It Only Needs To Lift The Iron Lids Of The Mind's Eye To Read Its Oracles.

There Is Virtue Yet In The Hoe And The Spade, For Learned As Well As For Unlearned Hands. And Labor Is Everywhere Welcome; Alwayswe Are Invited To Work.

Thanks To The Morning Light, Thanks To The Foaming Sea, To The Uplands Of New Hampshire, To The Green-haired Forest Free.

Standing On The Bare Ground,--my Head Bathed By The Blithe Air And Uplifted Into Infinite Space,--all Mean Egotism Vanishes. I Become A Transparent Eyeball; I Am Nothing; I See All; The Currents Of The Universal Being Circulate Through Me; I Am Part Or Parcel Of God.

Children Are All Foreigners.

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.

We Read Often With As Much Talent As We Write.

For The Most Part, Only The Light Characters Travel. Who Are You That Have No Task To Keep You At Home?

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.

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

It Never Was In The Power Of Any Man Or Any Community To Call The Arts Into Being. They Come To Serve His Actual Wants, Never To Please His Fancy.

The Secret Of Success In Education Is Respecting The Students.

Secret To Success

We Have More Than We Use.

Use It Or Lose It

The Value Of A Dollar Is Social, As It Is Created By Society.

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity. All Men, All Things, The State, The Church, Yea The Friends Of The Heart Are Phantasms And Unreal Beside The Sanctuary Of The Heart. With So Much Awe, With So Much Fear, Let It Be Respected.

Men Are Better Than This Theology.

Thus Grows Up Fashion, An Equivocal Semblance, The Most Puissant, The Most Fantastic And Frivolous, The Most Feared And Followed, And Which Morals And Violence Assault In Vain.

A Man Comes To Measure His Greatness By The Regrets, Envies And Hatreds Of His Competitors.

If The King Is In The Palace, Nobody Looks At The Walls. It Is When He Is Gone, And The House Is Filled With Grooms And Gazers, That We Turn From The People, To Find Relief In The Majestic Men That Are Suggested By The Pictures And The Architecture.

Contemporary American Psychiatrist It Is A Happy Talent To Know How To Play.

I Awoke This Morning With Devout Thanksgiving For My Friends, The Old And The New.

You Must Elect Your Work; You Shall Take What Your Brains Can, And Drop All The Rest. Only So Can That Amount Of Vital Force Accumulate Which Can Make The Step From Knowing To Doing. No Matter How Much Faculty Of Idle Seeing A Man Has, The Step From Knowing To Doing Is Rarely Taken. It Is A Step Out Of A Chalk Circle Of Imbecility Into Fruitfulness.

Man Is Timid And Apologetic; He Is No Longer Upright; He Dares Not Say "i Think," "i Am," But Quotes Some Saint Or Sage.

In The Actual World--the Painful Kingdom Of Time And Place--dwell Care, And Canker, And Fear. With Thought, With The Ideal, Is Immortal Hilarity, The Rose Of Joy.

You Have A Place To Live In This World Which No Other Man Can Occupy; Hence No Competitors.

All History Is A Record Of The Power Of Minorities, And Of Minorities Of One.

If We Shall Take The Good We Find, Asking No Questions, We Shall Have Heaping Measures.

The Borrower Runs In His Own Debt.

A Sublime Hope Cheers Ever The Faithful Heart, That Elsewhere, In Other Regions Of The Universal Powers, Souls Are Now Acting, Enduring And Daring, Which Can Love Us, And Which We Can Love.

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.

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

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year.

In Vain Produced, All Rays Return; Evil Will Bless, And Ice Will Burn.

I Fear The Popular Notion Of Success Stands In Direct Opposition In All Points To The Real And Wholesome Success. One Adores Public Opinion, The Other, Private Opinion; One, Fame, The Other, Desert; One, Feats, The Other, Humility; One, Lucre, The Other, Love; One, Monopoly, And The Other, Hospitality Of Mind.

Let Us Even Bid Our Dearest Friends Farewell, And Defy Them, Saying, "who Are You? Unhand Me: I Will Be Dependent No More." Ah! Seest Thou Not, O Brother, That Thus We Part Only To Meet Again On A Higher Platform, And Only Be More Each Other's, Because We Are More Our Own?

The State Must Follow, And Not Lead, The Character And Progress Of The Citizen.

Genius Borrows Nobly.

Adopt The Pace Of Nature: Her Secret Is Patience.

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

Whenever You Are Sincerely Pleased You Are Nourished.

An Individual Is An Encloser. Time And Space, Liberty And Necessity, Truth And Thought, Are Left At Large No Longer.

Manners Make The Fortune Of The Ambitious Youth.

Tobacco, Coffee, Alcohol, Hashish, Prussic Acid, Strychnine, Are Weak Dilutions. The Surest Poison Is Time.

The Sciences, Even The Best,-mathematics And Astronomy,-are Like Sportsmen, Who Seize Whatever Prey Offers, Even Without Being Able To Make Any Use Of It.

Sympathy Is A Supporting Atmosphere, And In It We Unfold Easily And Well.

...in The Wilderness, I Find Something More Dear And Connate Than In The Streets Or Villages...in The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

Indeed The River Is A Perpetual Gala, And Boasts Each Month A New Ornament.

Every Day, A Little Sadder, A Little Madder. Will Someone Get Me A Ladder?

An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought.

The Poor Are Only They Who Feel Poor.

I Remember An Answer Which When Quite Young I Was Prompted To Make A Valued Adviser Who Was Wont To Importune Me With The Dear Old Doctrines Of The Church. On My Saying, What Have I To Do With The Sacredness Of Traditions, If I Live Wholly From Within? My Friend Suggested, - "but These Impulses May Be From Below, Not From Above." I Replied, 'they Do Not Seem To Me To Be Such; But If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then From The Devil.'

All Science Has One Aim, Namely, To Find A Theory Of Nature.

Every Man Has His Own Courage, And Is Betrayed Because He Seeks In Himself The Courage Of Other Persons.

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

The Difference Between Talent And Genius Is That Talent Says Things Which He Has Never Heard But Once, And Genius Things Which He Has Never Heard.

Wherever Work Is Done, Victory Is Attained.

A Man Is The Prisoner Of His Power. A Topical Memory Makes Him An Almanac; A Talent For Debate, Disputant; Skill To Get Money Makes Him A Miser, That Is, A Beggar. Culture Reduces These Inflammations By Invoking The Aid Of Other Powers Against The Dominant Talent, And By Appealing To The Rank Of Powers. It Watches Success.

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.

It Is Easy To Carp At Colleges, And The College, If He Will Wait For It, Will Have Its Own Turn. Genius Exists There Also, But Will Not Answer A Call Of A Committee Of The House Of Commons. It Is Rare, Precious, Eccentric, And Darkling.

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

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

Not Gold, But Only Man Can Make A People Great And Strong; Men Who, For Truth And Honor's Sake, Stand Fast And Suffer Long.

Life Is A Series Of Surprises And Would Not Be Worth Taking Or Keeping If It Were Not.

There Are No Days In Life So Memorable As Those Which Vibrate To Some Stroke Of The Imagination.

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

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 World Is Emblematic. Parts Of Speech Are Metaphors, Because The Whole Of Nature Is A Metaphor Of The Human Mind.

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

All Science Is Transcendental Or Else Passes Away.

No One Can Cheat You Out Of Ultimate Success But Yourself.

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.

If We Could Have Any Security Against Moods! If The Profoundest Prophet Could Be Holden To His Words, And The Hearer Who Is Readyto Sell All And Join The Crusade, Could Have Any Certificate That To-morrow His Prophet Shall Not Unsay His Testimony!

What Would Be The Use Of Immortality To A Person Who Cannot Use Well A Half An Hour?

Of Immortality, The Soul, When Well Employed, Is Incurious. It Is So Well, That It Is Sure That It Will Be Well. It Asks No Questions Of The Supreme Power.

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

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

Shakespeare Carries Us To Such A Lofty Strain Of Intelligent Activity, As To Suggest A Wealth Which Beggars His Own; And We Then Feel That The Splendid Works Which He Has Created, And Which In Other Hours We Extol As A Sort Of Self-existent Poetry, Take No Stronger Hold Of Real Nature Than The Shadow Of A Passing Traveller On The Rock. The Inspiration Which Uttered Itself In Hamlet And Lear Could Utter Things As Good From Day To Day, For Ever.

Thought Is The Property Of Him Who Can Entertain It, And Of Him Who Can Adequately Place It.

Fractures Well Cured Make Us More Strong.

But A Public Oration Is An Escapade, A Non-committal, An Apology, A Gag, And Not A Communication, Not A Speech, Not A Man.

Don't Be A Cynic, And Bewail And Bemoan. Omit The Negative Propositions. Don't Waste Yourself In Rejection, Nor Bark Against The Bad, But Chant The Beauty Of The Good. Set Down Nothing That Will Help Somebody.

We Ascribe Beauty To That Which Is Simple; Which Has No Superfluous Parts; Which Exactly Answers Its End; Which Stands Related To All Things; Which Is The Mean Of Many Extremes.

Sentimentalists ... Adopt Whatever Merit Is In Good Repute, And Almost Make It Hateful With Their Praise. The Warmer Their Expressions, The Colder We Feel.... Cure The Drunkard, Heal The Insane, Mollify The Homicide, Civilize The Pawnee, But What Lessons Can Be Devised For The Debauchee Of Sentiment?

Where The Heart Is, There The Muses, There The Gods Sojourn, And Not In Any Geography Of Fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, And Boston Bay, You Think Paltry Places, And The Ear Loves Names Of Foreign And Classic Topography. But Here We Are; And, If We Tarry A Little, We May Come To Learn That Here Is Best. See To It, Only, That Thyself Is Here;--and Art And Nature, Hope And Fate, Friends, Angels, And The Supreme Being, Shall Not Absent From The Chamber Where Thou Sittest.

If The Stars Should Appear One Night In A Thousand Years, How Would Men Believe And Adore; And Preserve For Many Generations The Remembrance Of The City Of God Which Had Been Shown! But Every Night Come Out These Envoys Of Beauty, And Light The Universe With Their Admonishing Smile.

Among The Map Makers Of Each Generation Are The Risk Takers, Those Who See The Opportunities, Seize The Moment And Expand Man's Vision Of The Future

Visions Of The Future

Language Is A City, To The Building Of Which Every Human Being Brought A Stone; Yet He Is No More To Be Credited With The Grand Result Than The Acaleph Which Adds A Cell To The Coral Reef Which Is The Basis Of The Continent.

Look Out Into The July Night, And See The Broad Belt Of Silver Flame Which Flashes Up The Half Of Heaven, Fresh And Delicate As The Bonfires Of The Meadow-flies. Yet The Powers Of Numbers Cannot Compute Its Enormous Age,—lasting As Space And Time,—embosomed In Time And Space.

We Are Never Without A Pilot. When We Know Not How To Steer, And Dare Not Hoist A Sail, We Can Drift. The Current Knows The Way, Though We Do Not. The Ship Of Heaven Guides Itself, And Will Not Accept A Wooden Rudder.

Let Not A Man Guard His Dignity, But Let His Dignity Guard Him.

It Is The Ignorant And Childish Part Of Mankind That Is The Fighting Part. Idle And Vacant Minds Want Excitement

The Rain Comes When The Wind Calls.

Success Goes Thus Invariably With A Certain Plus Or Positive Power: An Ounce Of Power Must Balance An Ounce Of Weight.

On The Other Side, The Conservative Party, Composed Of The Most Moderate, Able, And Cultivated Part Of The Population, Is Timid, And Merely Defensive Of Property. It Vindicates No Right, It Aspires To No Real Good, It Brands No Crime, It Proposes No Generous Policy, It Does Not Build, Nor Write, Nor Cherish The Arts, Nor Foster Religion, Nor Establish Schools, Nor Encourage Science, Nor Emancipate The Slave, Nor Befriend The Poor, Or The Indian, Or The Immigrant.

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.

Or Whipping Its Rough Surface For A Trout.

Trending Author

Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Felix Baumgartner

Category