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The Reason Why Any One Refuses His Assent To Your Opinion, Or His Aid To Your Benevolent Design, Is In You: He Refuses To Accept You As A Bringer Of Truth, Because, Though You Think You Have It, He Feels That You Have It Not. You Have Not Given Him The Authentic Sign.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Reason Why Any

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Reason Why Any One Refuses His Assent To Your Opinion, Or His Aid To Your Benevolent Design, Is In You: He Refuses To Accept You As A Bringer Of Truth, Because, Though You Think You Have It, He Feels That You Have It Not. You Have Not Given Him The Authentic Sign.

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For The World Is Not Painted, Or Adorned, But Is From The Beginning Beautiful; And God Has Not Made Some Beautiful Things, But Beauty Is The Creator Of The Universe.

Courage Consists In Equality To The Problem Before Us.

To Be Able To Discern That What Is True Is True, And That What Is False Is False,--this Is The Mark And Character Of Intelligence.

Play Out The Game, Act Well Your Part, And If The Gods Have Blundered, We Will Not.

It Is One Of The Most Beautiful Compensations Of This Life That No Person Can Sincerely Try To Help Another Without Helping Him Or Herself. Serve And You Shall Be Served. If You Love And Serve People, You Cannot, By Any Hiding Or Stratagem, Escape The Remuneration.

We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Powers Of Thought. Whence Came All These Tools, Inventions, Book Laws, Parties, Kingdoms? Out Of The Invisible World, Through A Few Brains. The Arts And Institutions Of Men Are Created Out Of Thought. The Powers That Make The Capitalist Are Metaphysical, The Force Of Method And Force Of Will Makes Trade, And Builds Towns.

Sugar Is Not So Sweet To The Palate As Sound To The Healthy Ear.

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.

No Great Man Ever Complains Of Want Of Opportunity.

Science Does Not Know Its Debt To Imagination. Goethe Did Not Believe That A Great Naturalist Could Exist Without This Faculty.

Every Man Is An Impossibility Until He Is Born.

Vanity Costs Money, Labor, Horses, Men, Women, Health And Peace, And Is Still Nothing At Last,--a Long Way Leading Nowhere.

Be A Little Careful About Your Library. Do You Foresee What You Will Do With It? Very Little To Be Sure. But The Real Question Is What It Will Do With You? You Will Come Here And Get Books That Will Open Your Eyes, And Your Ears, And Your Curiosity, And Turn You Inside Out Or Outside In.

Heroism Feels And Never Reasons, And Therefore Is Always Right.

A Great Man Is Always Willing To Be Little.

The Influence Of The Senses Have In Men Overpowered The Thought To The Degree That The Walls Of Time And Space Have Come To Look Solid, Real And Insurmountable. .. Yet Time And Space Are But Inverse Measures Of The Power Of The Mind. Man Is Capable Of Abolishing Them Both.

Therefore We Value The Poet. All The Argument And All The Wisdom Is Not In The Encyclopedia, Or The Treatise On Metaphysics, Or The Body Of Divinity, But In The Sonnet Or The Play.

Money Is The Representative Of A Certain Quantity Of Corn Or Other Commodity. It Is So Much Warmth, So Much Bread.

Words Are Alive. Cut Them And They Bleed.

The Ancients Called Beauty The Flowering Of Virtue.

This Ennui, For Which We Saxons Had No Name,--this Word Of France, Has Got A Terrific Significance. It Shortens Life, And Bereaves The Day Of Its Light.

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men. Every Man Is An Inlet To The Same And To All Of The Same. He That Is Once Admitted To The Right Of Reason Is Made A Freeman Of The Whole Estate. What Plato Has Thought, He May Think; What A Saint Has Felt, He May Feel; What At Any Time Has Befallen Any Man, He Can Understand. Who Hath Access To This Universal Mind Is A Party To All That Is Or Can Be Done, For This Is The Only And Sovereign Agent

There Is Nothing We Value And Hunt And Cultivate And Strive To Draw To Us, But In Some Hour We Turn And Rend It.

Nature Hates Calculators.

Keep Your Friendships In Repair.

Underneath The Inharmonious And Trivial Particulars, Is A Musical Perfection, The Ideal Journeying Always With Us, The Heaven Without Rent Or Seam.

All The Thoughts Of A Turtle Are Turtle

To A Physician, Each Man, Each Woman, Is An Amplification Of One Organ.

The Clergyman Who Lives In The City May Have Piety, But He Must Have Taste.

Life Is Wasted In The Necessary Preparation Of Finding What Is The True Way, And We Die Just As We Enter It.

Nature Is What You May Do. There Is Much You May Not Do.

Is Not Prayer A Study Of Truth, A Sally Of The Soul Into The Unfound Infinite? No Man Ever Prayed Heartily Without Learning Something.

I Shun Father And Mother And Wife And Brother, When My Genius Calls Me.

At Times The Whole World Seems To Be In Conspiracy To Importune You With Emphatic Trifles.

A Man Is Like A Bit Of Labrador Spar, Which Has No Luster As You Turn It In Your Hand, Until You Come To A Particular Angle; Then It Shows Deep And Beautiful Colors.

Behold The Sea, The Opaline, The Plentiful And Strong, Yet Beautiful As Is The Rose In June, Fresh As The Trickling Rainbow Of July; Sea Full Of Food, The Nourisher Of Kinds, Purger Of Earth, And Medicine Of Men; Creating A Sweet Climate By My Breath, Washing Out Harms And Griefs From Memory, And, In My Mathematic Ebb And Flow, Giving A Hint Of That Which Changes Not.

Conversation Is The Laboratory And Workshop Of The Student.

There Is Always A Certain Meanness In The Argument Of Conservatism, Joined With A Certain Superiority In Its Fact.

Man Is A Stream Whose Source Is Hidden. Our Being Is Descending Into Us From We Know Not Whence.

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.

The Adventitious Beauty Of Poetry May Be Felt In The Greater Delight With A Verse Given In A Happy Quotation Than In The Poem.

Want Is A Growing Giant Whom The Coat Of Have Was Never Large Enough To Cover.

This Time, Like All Times, Is A Very Good One, If We But Know What To Do With It.

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.

The World Exists, As I Understand It, To Teach The Science Of Liberty.

We Will Walk On Our Own Feet; We Will Work With Our Own Hands; We Will Speak Our Own Minds... A Nation Of Men Will For The First Time Exist, Because Each Believes Himself Inspired By The Divine Soul Which Also Inspires All Men.

The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most.

We Are Sure That, Though We Know Not How, Necessity Does Comport With Liberty, The Individual With The World, My Polarity With Thespirit Of The Times. The Riddle Of The Age Has For Each A Private Solution.

Herein Is The Explanation Of The Analogies, Which Exist In All The Arts. They Are The Re-appearance Of One Mind, Working In Many Materials To Many Temporary Ends. Raphael Paints Wisdom, Handel Sings It, Phidias Carves It, Shakspeare Writes It, Wren Builds It, Columbus Sails It, Luther Preaches It, Washington Arms It, Watt Mechanizes It. Painting Was Called "silent Poetry," And Poetry "speaking Painting." The Laws Of Each Art Are Convertible Into The Laws Of Every Other.

Be Not The Slave Of Your Own Past.

The Mystic Must Be Steadily Told,-all That You Say Is Just As True Without The Tedious Use Of That Symbol As With It. Let Us Have A Little Algebra, Instead Of This Trite Rhetoric,-universal Signs, Instead Of These Village Symbols,-and We Shall Both Be Gainers. The History Of Hierarchies Seems To Show That All Religious Error Consisted In Making The Symbol Too Stark And Solid, And Was At Last Nothing But An Excess Of The Organ Of Language.

The Wonder Is Always New That Any Sane Man Can Be A Sailor.

Genius Has Infused Itself Into Nature. It Indicates Itself By A Small Excess Of Good, A Small Balance In Brute Facts Always Favorable To The Side Of Reason.

I Have Never Met A Man Who Was Not My Superior In Some Particular.

When The Man Is At Home, His Standing In Society Is Well Known And Quietly Taken; But When He Is Abroad, It Is Problematical, And Is Dependent On The Success Of His Manners.

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?

The Law Of Nature Is Alternation For Evermore. Each Electrical State Superinduces The Opposite. The Soul Environs Itself With Friends, That It May Enter Into A Grander Self-acquaintance Or Solitude; And It Goes Alone For A Season, That It May Exalt Its Conversation Or Society.

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.

I Take This Evanescence And Lubricity Of All Objects, Which Lets Them Slip Through Our Fingers Then When We Clutch Hardest, To Be The Most Unhandsome Part Of Our Condition.

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

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things.

The Finished Man Of The World Must Eat Of Every Apple At Once. He Must Hold His Hatreds Also At Arm's Length, And Not Remember Spite. He Has Neither Friends Nor Enemies, But Values Men Only As Channels Of Power.

Wherever We Go, Whatever We Do, Self Is The Sole Subject We Study And Learn.

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

A Good Indignation Makes An Excellent Speech.

When Believers And Unbelievers Live In The Same Manner - I Distrust The Religion.

Your Genuine Action Will Explain Itself, And Will Explain Your Other Genuine Actions. Your Conformity Explains Nothing.

Do Not Believe That Possibly You Can Escape The Reward Of Your Action.

Don't Be Pushed By Your Problems. Be Led By Your Dreams.

The Merit Claimed For The Anglican Church Is That, If You Let It Alone, It Will Let You Alone.

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.

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.

The First Farmer Was The First Man, And All Historic Nobility Rests On Possession And Use Of Land.

A Man Of Thought Must Feel The Thought That Is Parent Of The Universe: That The Masses Of Nature Do Undulate And Flow.

The True Artist Has The Planet For His Pedestal; The Adventurer, After Years Of Strife, Has Nothing Broader Than His Shoes.

There Is No Way To Success In Art But To Take Off Your Coat, Grind Paint, And Work Like A Digger On The Railroad, All Day And Every Day.

Nature Never Sends A Great Man Into The Planet, Without Confiding The Secret To Another Soul.

When A Man Becomes A Conformist, He Is Sacrificing The Richness Of Independent Thinking.

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

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies.

The Measure Of A Master Is His Success In Bringing All Men Around To His Opinion Twenty Years Later.

Congratulations

Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty.

Belief And Love,--a Believing Love Will Relieve Us Of A Vast Load Of Care. O My Brothers, God Exists. There Is A Soul At The Centre Of Nature, And Over The Will Of Every Man, So That None Of Us Can Wrong The Universe.

Why Should We Fear To Be Crushed By Savage Elements, We Who Are Made Up Of The Same Elements?

The "times," "the Age" What Is That, But A Few Profound Persons And A Few Active Persons Who Epitomize The Times?

Life Consists In What A Man Is Thinking Of All Day.

Only Be Admonished By What You Already See, Not To Strike Leagues Of Friendship With Cheap Persons, Where No Friendship Can Be. Our Impatience Betrays Us Into Rash And Foolish Alliances Which No God Attends.

Every Actual State Is Corrupt. Good Men Must Not Obey The Laws Too Well.

Our Eyes Are Holden That We Cannot See Things That Stare Us In The Face, Until The Hour Arrives When The Mind Is Ripened; Then We Behold Them, And The Time When We Saw Them Not Is Like A Dream.

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

The Bulk Of Mankind Believe In Two Gods. They Are Under One Dominion Here In The House, As Friend And Parent, In Social Circles, In Letters, In Art, In Love, In Religion; But In Mechanics, In Dealing With Steam And Climate, In Trade, In Politics, They Think They Come Under Another.

Every Known Fact In Natural Science Was Divined By The Presentiment Of Somebody, Before It Was Actually Verified.

Native American

Wouldst Thou Shut Up The Avenues Of Ill, Pay Every Debt As If God Wrote The Bill.

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

But There Is No End To The Praise Of Books, To The Value Of The Library. Who Shall Estimate Their Influence On Our Population Where All The Millions Read And Write ? It Is The Joy Of Nations That Man Can Communicate All His Thoughts, Discoveries And Virtues To Records That May Last For Centuries.

A Man Is Related To All Nature.

Who Shall Set A Limit To The Influence Of A Human Being? There Are Men, Who, By Their Sympathetic Attractions, Carry Nations Withthem, And Lead The Activity Of The Human Race. And If There Be Such A Tie, That, Wherever The Mind Of Man Goes, Nature Will Accompany Him, Perhaps There Are Men Whose Magnetisms Are Of That Force To Draw Material And Elemental Powers, And, Where They Appear, Immense Instrumentalities Organize Around Them.

There Are Moods In Which We Court Suffering, In The Hope That Here, At Least, We Shall Find Reality, Sharp Peaks And Edges Of Truth. But It Turns Out To Be Scene-painting And Counterfeit. The Only Thing Grief Has Taught Me Is To Know How Shallow It Is.

Don't Waste Yourself In Rejection, Nor Bark Against The Bad, But Chant The Beauty Of The Good.

Emancipation Is The Demand Of Civilization. That Is A Principle; Everything Else Is An Intrigue.

Why Should All Virtue Work In One And The Same Way? Why Should All Give Dollars? It Is Very Inconvenient To Us Country Folk, And We Do Not Think Any Good Will Come Of It. We Have Not Dollars; Merchants Have; Let Them Give Them. Farmers Will Give Corn; Poets Will Sing; Women Will Sew; Laborers Will Lend A Hand; The Children Will Bring Flowers.

People Seem Sheathed In Their Tough Organization.

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.

Most People, Who Have Quit Smoking, Have Had At Least One Unsuccessful Try In The Past. It Is Not Important How Many Times You Try To Quit. The Only Important Thing Is, That Eventually You Stay Quit

All The Great Ages Have Been Ages Of Belief.

We Over-estimate The Conscience Of Our Friend. His Goodness Seems Better Than Our Goodness, His Nature Finer, His Temptations Less. Everything That Is His,--his Name, His Form, His Dress, Books, And Instruments,--fancy Enhances. Our Own Thought Sounds New And Larger From His Mouth.

The State Of Society Is One In Which The Members Have Suffered Amputation From The Trunk, And Strut About So Many Walking Monsters, - A Good Finger, A Neck, A Stomach, An Elbow, But Never A Man. Man Is Thus Metamorphosed Into A Thing, Into Many Things. The Planter, Who Is Man Sent Out Into The Field To Gather Food, Is Seldom Cheered By Any Idea Of The True Dignity Of His Ministry. He Sees His Bushel And His Cart, And Nothing Beyond, And Sinks Into The Farmer, Instead Of Man On The Farm.

By God, I Will Not Obey This Filthy Enactment!

In Strict Science, All Persons Underlie The Same Condition Of An Infinite Remoteness. Shall We Fear To Cool Our Love By Mining Forthe Metaphysical Foundation Of This Elysian Temple? Shall I Not Be As Real As The Things I See? If I Am, I Shall Not Fear To Know Them For What They Are.

It Now Appears That The Negro Race Is, More Than Any Other, Susceptible Of Rapid Civilization. The Emancipation Is Observed, In The Islands, To Have Wrought For The Negro A Benefit As Sudden As When A Thermometer Is Brought Out Of The Shade Into The Sun. It Has Given Him Eyes And Ears.

The Best Lightning Rod For Your Protection Is Your Own Spine.

Finish Each Day And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could. Learn From It... Tomorrow Is A New Day.

It Is In Bad Taste," Is The Most Formidable Word An Englishman Can Pronounce.

Criticism Is Infested With The Cant Of Materialism, Which Assumes That Manual Skill And Activity Is The First Merit Of All Men, And Disparages Such As Say And Do Not, Overlooking The Fact, That Some Men, Namely, Poets, Are Natural Sayers, Sent Into The World To The End Of Expression, And Confounds Them With Those Whose Province Is Action, But Who Quit To Imitate The Sayers.

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

The Advantage In Education Is Always With Those Children Who Slip Up Into Life Without Being Objects Of Notice.

For Everything You Gain, You Lose Something.

Missing Someone

We Must Not Inquire Too Curiously Into The Absolute Value Of Literature. Enough That It Amuses And Exercises Us. At Least It Leaves Us Where We Were. It Names Things, But Does Not Add Things.

The Only Money Of God Is God. He Pays Never With Any Thing Less, Or Any Thing Else.

The Sea Is Masculine, The Type Of Active Strength. Look, What Egg-shells Are Drifting All Over It, Each One, Like Ours, Filled With Men In Ecstasies Of Terror, Alternating With Cockney Conceit, As The Sea Is Rough Or Smooth. Is This Sad-colored Circle An Eternal Cemetery?

There Comes A Period Of The Imagination To Each--a Later Youth--the Power Of Beauty, The Power Of Looks, Of Poetry.

Knowledge, Virtue, Power Are The Victories Of Man Over His Necessities, His March To The Dominion Of The World.

For Splendor, There Must Somewhere Be Rigid Economy. That The Head Of The House May Go Brave, The Members Must Be Plainly Clad, And The Town Must Save That The State May Spend.

Whom God Has Put Asunder, Why Should Man Put Together?

It Is The Delight Of Vulgar Talent To Dazzle And To Bind The Beholder. But True Genius Seeks To Defend Us From Itself. True Geniuswill Not Impoverish, But Will Liberate, And Add New Sense. If A Wise Man Should Appear In Our Village, He Would Create, In Those Who Conversed With Him, A New Consciousness Of Wealth, By Opening Their Eyes To Unobserved Advantages; He Would Establish A Sense Of Immovable Equality, Calm Us With Assurances That We Could Not Be Cheated; As Every One Would Discern The Checks And Guarantees Of Condition.

Money Is Of No Value; It Cannot Spend Itself. All Depends On The Skill Of The Spender.

Every Man's Condition Is A Solution In Hieroglyph To Those Inquiries He Would Put. He Acts It As Life Before He Apprehends It As Truth.

When I Go Into The Garden With A Spade And Dig A Bed I Feel Such An Exhilaration And Health That I Discover That I Have Been Defrauding Myself All This Time In Letting Others Do For Me What I Should Have Done With My Own Hands.

Human Character Evermore Publishes Itself. The Most Fugitive Deed And Word, The Intimated Purpose, Express Character.

Deeds And Words

Thought Is The Seed Of Action.

Whoever Is Open, Loyal, True; Of Humane And Affable Demeanour; Honourable Himself, And In His Judgement Of Others; Faithful To His Word As To Law, And Faithful Alike To God And Man....such A Man Is A True Gentleman.

I Wish That Friendship Should Have Feet, As Well As Eyes And Eloquence. It Must Plant Itself On The Ground, Before It Vaults Overthe Moon. I Wish It To Be A Little Of A Citizen, Before It Is Quite A Cherub.

Nature Is Not Slow To Equip Us In The Prison-uniform Of The Party To Which We Adhere.

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.

The Soul Circumscribes All Things.

Tis The Old Secret Of The Gods That They Come In Low Disguises. 'tis The Vulgar Great Who Come Dizened With Gold And Jewels. Real Kings Hide Away Their Crowns In Their Wardrobes, And Affect A Plain And Poor Exterior.

Everything Runs To Excess; Every Good Quality Is Noxious If Unmixed.

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.

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 Great Licentiousness Treads On The Heels Of A Reformation.

The Beautiful Laws Of Time And Space, Once Dislocated By Our Inaptitude, Are Holes And Dens. If The Hive Be Disturbed By Rash And Stupid Hands, Instead Of Honey, It Will Yield Us Bees.

Much Of The Wisdom Of The World Is Not Wisdom, And The Most Illuminated Class Of Men Are No Doubt Superior To Literary Fame, And Are Not Writers.

Each Man Is A Hero And An Oracle To Somebody.

Let Us Answer A Book Of Ink With A Book Of Flesh And Blood.

A Man In The Wrong May More Easily Be Convinced Than One Half Right.

A Friend Is A Person Who Goes Around Saying Nice Things About You Behind Your Back.

Cute Friendship

Behind Your Back

But If A Man Would Be Alone, Let Him Look At The Stars. The Rays That Come From Those Heavenly Worlds, Will Separate Between Him And Vulgar Things.

The Secret Of Drunkenness Is, That It Insulates Us In Thought, Whilst It Unites Us In Feeling.

Time Is Indeed The Theater And Seat Of Illusions; Nothing Is So Ductile And Elastic. The Mind Stretches An Hour To A Century, And Dwarfs An Age To An Hour.

Thought Makes Everything Fit For Use.

When The Spirit Is Not Master Of The World, Then It Is Its Dupe.

Treat Your Friend As A Spectacle.

All Writing Is By The Grace Of God. People Do Not Deserve To Have Good Writing, They Are So Pleased With Bad. In These Sentences That You Show Me, I Can Find No Beauty, For I See Death In Every Clause And Every Word. There Is A Fossil Or A Mummy Character Which Pervades This Book. The Best Sepulchers, The Vastest Catacombs, Thebes And Cairo, Pyramids, Are Sepulchers To Me. I Like Gardens And Nurseries. Give Me Initiative, Spermatic, Prophesying, Man-making Words.

Circles, Like The Soul, Are Neverending And Turn Round And Round Without A Stop.

Things Have Their Laws As Well As Men, And Things Refuse To Be Trifled With.

Art Is A Jealous Mistress; And If A Man Have A Genius For Painting, Poetry, Music, Architecture Or Philosophy, He Makes A Bad Husband And An Ill Provider.

Sanity Consists In Not Being Subdued By Your Means. Fancy Prices Are Paid For Position, And For The Culture Of Talent, But To Thegrand Interests, Superficial Success Is Of No Account.

One Man Pins Me To The Wall, While With Another I Walk Among The Stars

We Must Be Very Suspicious Of The Deceptions Of The Element Of Time. It Takes A Good Deal Of Time To Eat Or To Sleep, Or To Earn Ahundred Dollars, And A Very Little Time To Entertain A Hope And An Insight Which Becomes The Light Of Our Life.

The Secret Of Education Lies In Respecting The Pupil. It Is Not For You To Choose What He Shall Know, What He Shall Do. It Is Chosen And Foreordained And He Only Holds The Key To His Own Secret.

Concentration Is The Secret Of Strength In Politics, In War, In Trade, In Short In All Management Of Human Affairs.

Focus And Concentration

The Virtue Of Art Lies In Detachment, In Sequestering One Object From The Embarrassing Variety. Until One Thing Comes Out From Theconnection Of Things, There Can Be Enjoyment, Contemplation, But No Thought.

People That Seem So Glorious Are All Show; Underneath They Are Like Everyone Else.

The Law Of Nature Is Alternation For Evermore. Each Electrical State Superinduces The Opposite.

Do Not Be Caught By The Sensational In Nature, As A Coarse Red-faced Sunset, A Garrulous Waterfall, Or A Fifteen Thousand Foot Mountain... Avoid Prettiness - The Word Looks Much Like Pettiness - And There Is But Little Difference Between Them.

Wild Liberty Develops Iron Conscience. Want Of Liberty, By Strengthening Law And Decorum, Stupefies Conscience.

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

The First Questions Are Always To Be Asked, And The Wisest Doctor Is Gravelled By The Inquisitiveness Of A Child.

Let The River Roll Which Way It Will, Cities Will Rise On Its Banks.

A Rush Of Thoughts Is The Only Conceivable Prosperity That Can Come To Us.

A Scholar Is A Candle Which The Love And Desire Of All Men Will Light.

Beauty Is The Mark God Sets Upon Virtue.

Preaching Is The Expression Of Moral Sentiments Applied To The Duties Of Life.

No Man Can Be Criticised But By A Greater Than He. Do Not, Then, Read The Reviews.

The Common Experience Is, That The Man Fits Himself As Well As He Can To The Customary Details Of That Work Or Trade He Falls Into, And Tends It As A Dog Turns A Spit. Then He Is Part Of The Machine He Moves; The Man Is Lost.

On Bravely Through The Sunshine And The Showers! Time Hath His Work To Do, And We Have Ours.

Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Every One Of Its Members.

Some Will Always Be Above Others. Destroy The Inequality Today, And It Will Appear Again Tomorrow.

The Sign And Credentials Of The Poet Are That He Announces That Which No Man Foretold

Among Provocative, The Next Best Thing To Good Preaching Is Bad Preaching.

Can Anything Be So Elegant As To Have Few Wants, And To Serve Them One's Self?

The Torments Of Martyrdom Are Probably Most Keenly Felt By The Bystanders.

Go, Speed The Stars Of Thought On To Their Shining Goals; - The Sower Scatters Broad His Seed, The Wheat Thou Strew'st Be Souls.

...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.

In The Highest Civilization The Book Is Still The Highest Delight.

The Inmost In Due Time Becomes The Outmost.

The Word Unto The Prophet Spoken Was Writ On Tablets Yet Unbroken: The Word By Seers Or Sibyls Told, In Groves Of Oak Or Fanes Of Gold, Still Floats Upon The Morning Wind, Still Whispers To The Willing Mind.

The Farmer After Sacrificing Pleasure, Taste, Freedom, Thought, Love, To His Work, Turns Out Often A Bankrupt, Like The Merchant.this Result Might Well Seem Astounding. All This Drudgery, From Cockcrowing To Starlight, For All These Years, To End In Mortgages And The Auctioneer's Flag, And Removing From Bad To Worse. It Is Time To Have The Thing Looked Into, And With A Sifting Criticism Ascertained Who Is The Fool.

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

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

Secret To Success

Every Man Is A Divinity In Disguise, A God Playing The Fool.

I Am Not Engaged To Christianity By Decent Forms, Or Saving Ordinances; It Is Not Usage, It Is Not What I Do Not Understand, That Binds Me To It -- Let These Be The Sandy Foundations Of Falsehoods. What I Revere And Obey In It Is Its Reality, Its Boundless Charity, Its Deep Interior Life, The Rest It Gives To My Mind, The Echo It Returns To My Thoughts, The Perfect Accord It Makes With My Reason Through All Its Representation Of God And His Providence; And The Persuasion And Courage That Come Out Thence To Lead Me Upward And Onward.

Do Your Thing, And I Shall Know You.

The Purpose Of Life Seems To Be To Acquaint A Man With Himself And Whatever Science Or Art Or Course Of Action He Engages In Reacts Upon And Illuminates The Recesses Of His Own Mind. Thus Friends Seem To Be Only Mirrors To Draw Out And Explain To Us Ourselves; And That Which Draws Us Nearer Our Fellow Man, Is, That The Deep Heart In One, Answers The Deep Heart In Another, - That We Find We Have (a Common Nature) - One Life Which Runs Through All Individuals, And Which Is Indeed Divine.

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

Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

Transcendentalism

Every Thought Is Public, Every Nook Is Wide; Thy Gossips Spread Each Whisper, And The Gods From Side To Side.

Words Are Finite Expressions Of The Infinite Mind.

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.

The Only Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself . . . The Poet Brings His Poem; The Shepherd His Lamb. . . .

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