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The Results Of Life Are Uncalculated And Uncalculable. The Years Teach Much Which The Days Never Know. The Persons Who Compose Our Company, Converse, And Come And Go, And Design And Execute Many Things, And Somewhat Comes Of It All, But An Unlooked For Result. The Individual Is Always Mistaken. He Designed Many Things, And Drew In Other Persons As Coadjutors, Quarrelled With Some Or All, Blundered Much, And Something Is Done; All Are A Little Advanced, But The Individual Is Always Mistaken. It Turns Out Somewhat New, And Very Unlike What He Promised Himself.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Results Of Life

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Results Of Life Are Uncalculated And Uncalculable. The Years Teach Much Which The Days Never Know. The Persons Who Compose Our Company, Converse, And Come And Go, And Design And Execute Many Things, And Somewhat Comes Of It All, But An Unlooked For Result. The Individual Is Always Mistaken. He Designed Many Things, And Drew In Other Persons As Coadjutors, Quarrelled With Some Or All, Blundered Much, And Something Is Done; All Are A Little Advanced, But The Individual Is Always Mistaken. It Turns Out Somewhat New, And Very Unlike What He Promised Himself.

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

Shall We Then Judge A Country By The Majority, Or By The Minority? By The Minority, Surely. 'tis Pedantry To Estimate Nations By The Census, Or By Square Miles Of Land, Or Other Than By Their Importance To The Mind Of The Time.

The Instinct Of The People Is Right.

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

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

Every Man Is Wanted, And No Man Is Wanted Much.

Every Novel Is A Debtor To Homer.

A Breath Of Will Blows Eternally Through The Universe Of Souls In The Direction Of Right And Necessity. It Is The Air Which All Intellects Inhale And Exhale, And It Is The Wind Which Blows The Worlds Into Order And Orbit.

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

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.

A Good Reader Makes A Good Book

There Is No One Who Does Not Exaggerate. In Conversation, Men Are Encumbered With Personality, And Talk Too Much.

Exaggeration Is

Our Chief Want In Life Is Somebody Who Will Make Us Do What We Can.

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

All Life Is An Experiment. The More Experiments You Make The Better.

What Is A Weed? A Plant Whose Virtues Have Never Been Discovered.

The Mass Are Animal, In Pupilage, And Near Chimpanzee.

I Cannot Forgive A Scholar His Homeless Despondency.

Why Needs A Man Be Rich? Why Must He Have Horses, Fine Garments, Handsome Apartments, Access To Public Houses, And Places Of Amusement? Only For Want Of Thought.

Money, Which Represents The Prose Of Life, And Which Is Hardly Spoken Of In Parlors Without An Apology, Is, In Its Effects And Laws, As Beautiful As Roses.

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

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

To Believe In Luck ... Is Skepticism.

Meantime The Education Of The General Mind Never Stops. The Reveries Of The True And Simple Are Prophetic. What The Tender Poeticyouth Dreams, And Prays, And Paints Today, But Shuns The Ridicule Of Saying Aloud, Shall Presently Be The Resolutions Of Public Bodies, Then Shall Be Carried As Grievance And Bill Of Rights Through Conflict And War, And Then Shall Be Triumphant Law And Establishment For A Hundred Years, Until It Gives Place, In Turn, To New Prayers And Pictures.

So Far As A Person Thinks; They Are Free.

It Is Contended That Those Who Have Been Bred At Eton, Harrow, Rugby, And Westminster, That The Public Sentiment Within Each Of Those Schools Is High-toned And Manly; That, In Their Playgrounds, Courage Is Universally Admired, Meanness Despised, Manly Feelings And Generous Conduct Are Encouraged: That An Unwritten Code Of Honor Deals To The Spoiled Child Of Rank, And To The Child Of Upstart Wealth An Even-handed Justice, Purges Their Nonsense Out Of Both, And Does All That Can Be Done To Make Them Gentlemen.

Nature Is Thoroughly Mediate. It Is Made To Serve. It Receives The Dominion Of Man As Meekly As The Ass On Which The Saviour Rode.it Offers All Its Kingdoms To Man As The Raw Material Which He May Mould Into What Is Useful. Man Is Never Weary Of Working It Up.

I--this Thought Which Is Called I--is The Mould Into Which The World Is Poured Like Melted Wax.

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

Five Great Enemies Of Peace Inhabit Us: Avarice, Ambition, Envy, Anger And Pride.

Astronomy Is A Cold, Desert Science, With All Its Pompous Figures,-depends A Little Too Much On The Glass-grinder, Too Little On The Mind. 't Is Of No Use To Show Us More Planets And Systems. We Know Already What Matter Is, And More Or Less Of It Does Not Signify.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose ... We Distinguish The Announcements Of The Soul, Its Manifestations Of Its Own Nature, By The Term Revelation. These Are Always Attended By The Emotion Of The Sublime. For This Communication Is An Influx Of The Divine Mind Into Our Mind. It Is An Ebb Of The Individual Rivulet Before The Flowing Surges Of The Sea Of Life. Every Distinct Apprehension Of This Central Commandment Agitates Men With Awe And Delight.

Nor Sequent Centuries Could Hit Orbit And Sum Of Shakspeare's Wit. The Men Who Lived With Him Became Poets, For The Air Was Fame.

Build A Better Mousetrap And The World Will Beat A Path To Your Door.

It Is One Of The Blessings Of Old Friends That You Can Afford To Be Stupid With Them.

Two May Talk And One May Hear, But Three Cannot Take Part In A Conversation Of The Most Sincere And Searching Sort.

The Best Of Life Is Conversation.

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

Men Are Conservatives When They Are Least Vigorous Or When They Are Most Luxurious-they Are Conservatives After Dinner.

Government Has Been A Fossil: It Should Be A Plant.

Every Man Beholds His Human Condition With A Degree Of Melancholy. As A Ship Aground Is Battered By The Waves, So Man, Imprisonedin Mortal Life, Lies Open To The Mercy Of Coming Events.

Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm.

We Infer The Spirit Of The Nation In Great Measure From The Language, Which Is A Sort Of Monument, To Which Each Forcible Individual In A Course Of Many Hundred Years Has Contributed A Stone.

Nothing Is At Last Sacred But The Integrity Of Your Own Mind.

It Is One Soul Which Animates All Men.

A Fly Is As Untamable As A Hyena.

The Finest Wits Have Their Sediment.

The Lover Of Nature Is He Whose Inward And Outward Senses Are Still Truly Adjusted To Each Other.

I Have Heard That Death Takes Us Away From Ill Things, Not From Good. I Have Heard That When We Pronounce The Name Of Man We Pronounce The Belief Of Immortality.

Henceforth, Please God, Forever I Forego The Yolk Of Men's Opinions. I Will Be Light-hearted As A Bird And Live With God. I Find Him In The Bottom Of My Heart, And I Hear Continually His Voice Therein.

A Man Is The Facade Of A Temple Wherein All Wisdom And All Good Abide.

The Heroic Cannot Be The Common, Nor The Common The Heroic.

He Who Is In Love Is Wise And Is Becoming Wiser, Sees Newly Every Time He Looks At The Object Beloved, Drawing From It With His Eyes And His Mind Those Virtues Which It Possesses.

I Dip My Pen In The Blackest Ink, Because I'm Not Afraid Of Falling Into My Inkpot.

The Vulgar Call Good Fortune That Which Really Is Produced By The Calculations Of Genius.

All Ages Of Belief Have Been Great; All Of Unbelief Have Been Mean.

When Friendships Are Real, They Are Not Glass Threads Or Frost-work , But The Solidest Thing We Know.

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

A Man Cannot Utter Two Or Three Sentences Without Disclosing To Intelligent Ears Precisely Where He Stands In Life And Thought, Whether In The Kingdom Of The Senses And The Understanding, Or In That Of Ideas And Imagination, Or In The Realm Of Intuitions And Duty.

The Connection Between Our Knowledge And The Abyss Of Being Is Still Real, And The Explication Must Be Not Less Magnificent.

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.

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

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

When It's Darkest, Men See The Stars.

It Is The Privilege Of Any Human Work Which Is Well Done To Invest The Doer With A Certain Haughtiness. He Can Well Afford Not To Conciliate, Whose Faithful Work Will Answer For Him.

In Our Definitions, We Grope After The Spiritual By Describing It As Invisible. The True Meaning Of Spiritual Is Real; That Law Which Executes Itself, Which Works Without Means, And Which Cannot Be Conceived As Not Existing.

A Man Often Pays Dear For A Small Frugality.

I Have Come To Believe That The Whole World Is An Enigma, A Harmless Enigma That Is Made Terrible By Our Own Mad Attempt To Interpret It As Though It Had An Underlying Truth. If Two Or Three Persons Should Come With A High Spiritual Aim And With Great Powers, The World Would Fall Into Their Hands Like A Ripe Peach.

The Things Taught In Schools & Colleges Are Not An Education But The Means Of Education.

Intemperance Is The Only Vulgarity.

Where Do We Find Ourselves? In A Series Of Which We Do Not Know The Extremes, And Believe That It Has None. We Wake And Find Ourselves On A Stair; There Are Stairs Below Us, Which We Seem To Have Ascended; There Are Stairs Above Us, Many A One, Which Go Upward And Out Of Sight.

Why Should I Cumber Myself With Regrets That The Receiver Is Not Capacious? It Never Troubles The Sun That Some Of His Rays Fall Wide And Vain Into Ungrateful Space, And Only A Small Part On The Reflecting Planet. Let Your Greatness Educate The Crude And Cold Companion.

Fame Is Proof That The People Are Gullible.

I Wish To Speak With All Respect Of Persons, But Sometimes I Must Pinch Myself To Keep Awake, And Preserve The Due Decorum. They Melt So Fast Into Each Other, That They Are Like Grass And Trees, And It Needs An Effort To Treat Them As Individuals.

But Dare Rather To Quit The Platform, Plunge Into The Sublime Seas, Dive Deep, & Swim Far, So Shall You Come Back With Self-respect, With New Power, With An Advanced Experience, That Shall Explain & Overlook The Old. Trust Your Emotion.

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

As Sunbeams Stream Through Liberal Space And Nothing Jostle Or Displace, So Waved The Pine-tree Through My Thought And Fanned The Dreams It Never Brought.

Keep Cool: It Will Be All One A Hundred Years Hence.

Hidden Away In The Inner Nature Of The Real Man Is The Law Of His Life, And Someday He Will Discover It And Consciously Make Use Of It. He Will Heal Himself, Make Himself Happy And Prosperous, And Life In An Entirely Different World. For He Will Have Discovered That Life Is From Within And Not From Without.

Eloquence Shows The Power And Possibility Of Man. There Is One Of Whom We Took No Note, But On A Certain Occasion It Appears That He Has A Secret Virtue Never Suspected - That He Can Paint What Has Occurred And What Must Occur, With Such Clearness To A Company, As If They Saw It Done Before Their Eyes. By Leading Their Thought He Leads Their Will, And Can Make Them Do Gladly What An Hour Ago They Would Not Believe That They Could Be Led To Do At All.

Our Expenses Are All For Conformity.

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.

Some Men's Words I Remember So Well That I Must Often Use Them To Express My Thought. Yes, Because I Perceive That We Have Heard The Same Truth, But They Have Heard It Better.

Do You See That Kitten Chasing So Prettily Her Own Tail? If You Could Look With Her Eyes, You Might See Her Surrounded With Hundreds Of Figures Performing Complex Dramas, With Tragic And Comic Issues, Long Conversations, Many Characters, Many Ups And Downs Of Fate.

A Strenuous Soul Hates Cheap Success. It Is The Ardor Of The Assailant That Makes The Vigor Of The Defendant.

Venus, When Her Son Was Lost, Cried Him Up And Down The Coast, In Hamlets, Palaces, And Parks, And Told The Truant By His Marks,- Golden Curls, And Quiver, And Bow.

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

It Is True That The Discerning Intellect Of The World Is Always Much In Advance Of The Creative, So That There Are Competent Judges Of The Best Book, And Few Writers Of The Best Books.

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

I See Not Any Road Of Perfect Peace Which A Man Can Walk But After The Counsel Of His Own Bosom.

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.

Railroad Iron Is A Magician's Rod, In Its Power To Evoke The Sleeping Energies Of Land And Water.

To Give Money To A Sufferer Is Only A Come-off. It Is Only A Postponement Of The Real Payment, A Bribe Paid For Silence, A Creditsystem In Which A Paper Promise To Pay Answers For The Time Instead Of Liquidation. We Owe To Man Higher Succors Than Food And Fire. We Owe To Man.

In The Country, Without Any Interference From The Law, The Agricultural Life Favors The Permanence Of Families.

I Hate To Be Defended In A Newspaper. As Long As All That Is Said Is Said Against Me, I Feel A Certain Assurance Of Success. But As Soon As Honeyed Words Of Praise Are Spoken For Me, I Feel As One That Lies Unprotected Before His Enemies.

Society Is A Masked Ball, Where Every One Hides His Real Character, And Reveals It By Hiding.

Talent For Talent's Sake Is A Bauble And A Show. Talent Working With Joy In The Cause Of Universal Truth Lifts The Possessor To New Power As A Benefactor.

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

The Power Which Resides In Him Is New In Nature, And None But He Knows What That Is Which He Can Do, Nor Does He Know Until He Has Tried.

There Is Simply The Rose; It Is Perfect In Every Moment Of Its Existence.

For A Great Nature, It Is A Happiness To Escape A Religious Training; Religion Of Character Is So Apt To Be Invaded.

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.

The Worst Of Charity Is That The Lives You Are Asked To Preserve Are Not Worth Preserving.

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

Men Have Sometimes Exchanged Names With Their Friends, As If They Would Signify That In Their Friend Each Loved His Own Soul.

Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit. To A Man Laboring Under Calamity The Heat Of His Own Fire Hath Sadness In It. Then There Is A Kind Of Contempt Of The Landscape Felt By Him Who Has Just Lost By Death A Dear Friend. The Sky Is Less Grand As It Shuts Down Over Less Worth In The Population.

Some Will Always Be Above Others.

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

Every Spirit Builds Itself A House; And Beyond Its House, A World; And Beyond Its World A Heaven. Know Then, That The World Exists For You: Build, Therefore, Your Own World.

When The Night Is Darkest, The Stars Come Out.

Children And Savages Use Only Nouns Or Names Of Things, Which They Convert Into Verbs, And Apply To Analogous Mental Acts.

It Is An Esoteric Doctrine Of Society, That A Little Wickedness Is Good To Make Muscle; As If Conscience Were Not Good For Hands And Legs.

Is Not Marriage An Open Question, When It Is Alleged, From The Beginning Of The World, That Such As Are In The Institution Wish To Get Out, And Such As Are Out Wish To Get In?

Art Is Evidence Of Our Most Creative Moment.

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.

In Dealing With The State, We Ought To Remember That Its Institutions Are Not Aboriginal, Though They Existed Before We Were Born; That They Are Not Superior To The Citizen; That Every One Of Them Was Once The Act Of A Single Man; Every Law And Usage Was A Man's Expedient To Meet A Particular Case; That They All Are Imitable, All Alterable; We May Make As Good; We May Make Better.

Don't Ever Give Up On Something Or Someone That You Can't Go A Full Day Without Thinking About.

Postpone Not Your Life.

Procrastination

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.

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.

It Is Dainty To Be Sick If You Have Leisure And Convenience For It.

We Find In Life Exactly What We Put Into It

When A Happy Person Comes Into The Room, It Is As If Another Candle Has Been Lit.

The Worthless And Offensive Members Of Society, Whose Existence Is A Social Pest, Invariably Think Themselves The Most Ill-used People Alive, And Never Get Over Their Astonishment At The Ingratitude And Selfishness Of Their Contemporaries.

Whenever The Average Intellect Of The Clergy Declines In The Balance With The Average Intellect Of The People The Churches Will Be Shut Up And A New Order Of Things [will] Begin.

A Divine Person Is The Prophecy Of The Mind; A Friend Is The Hope Of The Heart.

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.

A Beautiful Soul Always Dwells In A Beautiful World.

Everything That Is Popular, It Has Been Said, Deserves The Attention Of Philosophers: And This Is For The Obvious Reason, That Although It May Not Be Of Any Worth In Itself, Yet It Characterizes The People.

The Simplicity Of The Universe Is Very Different From The Simplicity Of A Machine. The Simplicity Of Nature Is Not That Which May Be Easily Read But Is Inexhaustible. The Last Analysis Can No Wise Be Made.

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

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.

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

Deeds And Words

War Educates The Senses, Calls Into Action The Will, Perfects The Physical Constitution, Brings Men Into Such Swift And Close Collision In Critical Moments That Man Measures Man.

Saving Private Ryan

Of Lower States, Of Acts Of Routine And Sense, We Can Tell Somewhat; But The Masterpieces Of God, The Total Growths And Universalmovements Of The Soul, He Hideth; They Are Incalculable. I Can Know That Truth Is Divine And Helpful; But How It Shall Help Me I Can Have No Guess, For So To Be Is The Sole Inlet Of So To Know.

We Swim, Day By Day, On A River Of Delusions, And Are Effectually Amused With Houses And Towns In The Air, Of Which The Men Aboutus Are Dupes. But Life Is A Sincerity.

Time Dissipates To Shining Ether The Solid Angularity Of Facts.

We Legislate Against Forestalling And Monopoly; We Would Have A Common Granary For The Poor; But The Selfishness Which Hoards Thecorn For High Prices, Is The Preventative Of Famine; And The Law Of Self-preservation Is Surer Policy Than Any Legislation Can Be.

The Idea Of God Ends In A Paltry Methodist Meeting-house.

The Hero Sees That The Event Is Ancillary: It Must Follow Him.

Are You Not Scared By Seeing That The Gypsies Are More Attractive To Us Than The Apostles?

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.

Solitude, The Safeguard Of Mediocrity, Is To Genius The Stern Friend

The Greater Speed And Success That Distinguish The Planting Of The Human Race In This Country, Over All Other Plantations In History, Owe Themselves Mainly To The New Subdivisions Of The State Into Small Corporations Of Land And Power.

War Disorganizes, But It Is To Reorganize.

To The Men Of This World, To The Animal Strength And Spirits, To The Men Of Practical Power, Whilst Immersed In It, The Man Of Ideas Appears Out Of His Reason. They Alone Gave Reason.

The Population Of The World Is A Conditional Population; These Are Not The Best, But The Best That Could Live In The Existing State Of Soils, Gases, Animals, And Morals: The Best That Could Yet Live; There Shall Be A Better, Please God.

I Have Heard That Whoever Loves Is In No Condition Old. I Have Heard That Whenever The Name Of Man Is Spoken, The Doctrine Of Immortality Is Announced; It Cleaves To His Constitution. The Mode Of It Baffles Our Wit, And No Whisper Comes To Us From The Other Side. But The Inference From The Working Of Intellect, Hiving Knowledge, Hiving Skill,--at The End Of Life Just Ready To Be Born,--affirms The Inspirations Of Affection And Of The Moral Sentiment.

New York Is A Sucked Orange. All Conversation Is At An End, When We Have Discharged Ourselves Of A Dozen Personalities, Domestic Or Imported, Which Make Up Our American Existence.

If Man Has Good Corn, Or Wood, Or Boards, Or Pigs To Sell, Or Can Make Better Chairs Or Knives, Crucibles, Or Church Organs, Than Anybody Else, You Will Find A Broad, Hard-beaten Road To His House, Though It Be In The Woods.

Character Is Always Known. Thefts Never Enrich; Alms Never Impoverish; Murder Will Speak Out Of Stone Walls.

Native American

Before A Leaf-bud Has Burst, Its Whole Life Acts; In The Full-blown Flower There Is No More; In The Leafless Root There Is No Less.

What Torments Of Grief You Endured, From Evils That Never Arrived

Revolutions Go Not Backward.

The Moral Sense Is Always Supported By The Permanent Interest Of The Parties. Else, I Know Not How, In Our World, Any Good Would Ever Get Done.

If There Be Any Man Who Thinks The Ruin Of A Race Of Men A Small Matter, Compared With The Last Decoration And Completions Of Hisown Comfort,--who Would Not So Much As Part With His Ice- Cream, To Save Them From Rapine And Manacles, I Think I Must Not Hesitate To Satisfy That Man That Also His Cream And Vanilla Are Safer And Cheaper By Placing The Negro Nation On A Fair Footing Than By Robbing Them.

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

Excite The Soul, And The Weather And The Town And Your Condition In The World All Disappear; The World Itself Loses Its Solidity, Nothing Remains But The Soul And The Divine Presence In Which It Lives.

No Sensible Person Ever Made An Apology.

Do Not Tell Me Of My Obligation To Put All Poor Men In Good Situations. Are They My Poor? I Tell Thee, Thou Foolish Philanthropist, That I Grudge The Dollar, The Dime, The Cent, I Give To Such Men As Do Not Belong To Me And To Whom I Do Not Belong

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 Poet's Habit Of Living Should Be Set On A Key So Low That The Common Influences Should Delight Him.

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.

Rings And Jewels Are Not Gifts, But Apologies For Gifts. The Only Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself. Thou Must Bleed For Me. Therefore The Poet Brings His Poem; The Shepherd, His Lamb; The Farmer, Corn; The Miner, A Stone; The Painter, His Picture; The Girl, A Handkerchief Of Her Own Sewing.

As The Eye Is The Best Composer, So Light Is The First Of Painters. There Is No Object So Foul That Intense Light Will Not Make Beautiful; And The Stimulus It Affords To The Sense, And A Sort Of Infinitude Which It Hath Like Space And Time, Make All Matter Gay.

Europe Has Always Owed To Oriental Genius Its Divine Impulses. What These Holy Bards Said, All Sane Men Found Agreeable And True.

It Is The Same Among The Men And Women, As Among The Silent Trees; Always A Referred Existence, An Absence, Never A Presence And Satisfaction. Is It, That Beauty Can Never Be Grasped? In Persons And In Landscape Is Equally Inaccessible?

Great Works Of Art Have No More Affecting Lesson For Us Than This. They Teach Us To Abide By Our Own Spontaneous Expression With Good Humored Inflexibility Whether The Whole Cry Of Voices Is On The Other Side.

My Friends Have Come To Me Unsought. The Great God Gave Them To Me. By Oldest Right, By The Divine Affinity Of Virtue With Itself,i Find Them, Or Rather Not I, But The Deity In Me And In Them Derides And Cancels The Thick Walls Of The Individual Character, Relation, Age, Sex, Circumstance, At Which He Usually Connives, And Now Makes Many One.

Life Is Not So Short But That There Is Always Time Enough For Courtesy.

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

The Dearest Events Are Summer-rain.

The Eloquence Of One Stimulates All The Rest, Some Up To The Speaking-point, And All Others To A Degree That Makes Them Good Receivers And Conductors, And They Avenge Themselves For Their Enforced Silence By Increased Loquacity On Their Return.

Enthusiasm Is The Leaping Lightning, Not To Be Measured By The Horse-power Of The Understanding

A Day Is A Miniature Eternity.

Hast Thou Named All The Birds Without A Gun?

A Man Should Not Be A Silkworm; Nor A Nation A Tent Of Caterpillars.

We Animate What We Can See, And We See Only What We Animate.

A Man Must Be In Sympathy With Society Around Him, Or Else, Not Wish To Be In Sympathy With It. If Neither Of These Two, He Must Be Wretched.

A Man Must Ride Alternately On The Horses Of His Private And His Public Nature.

For He That Feeds Men Serveth Few; He Serves All Who Dares Be True.

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.

When We Quarrel, How We Wish We Had Been Blameless.

The Imaginative Faculty Of The Soul Must Be Fed With Objects Immense And Eternal.

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

The Vanishing, Volatile Froth Of The Present Which Any Shadow Will Alter, Any Thought Blow Away, Any Event Annihilate, Is Every Moment Converted Into The Adamantine.

We Cannot Let Our Angels Go; We Do Not See That They Only Go Out That Archangels May Come In.

We Acquire The Strength We Have Overcome.

In The Presence Of Nature, A Wild Delight Runs Through The Man, In Spite Of Real Sorrows.

Cowardice Shuts The Eyes Till The Sky Is Not Larger Than A Calf-skin: Shuts The Eyes So That We Cannot See The Horse That Is Running Away With Us; Worse, Shuts The Eyes Of The Mind And Chills The Heart.

By Degrees We May Come To Know The Primitive Sense Of The Permanent Objects Of Nature, So That The World Shall Be To Us An Open Book, And Every Form Significant Of Its Hidden Life And Final Cause.

Economy Does Not Consist In Saving The Coal, But In Using The Time While It Burns.

Circumstance Does Not Make The Man. Circumstance Reveals Man To Himself.

When At Last In A Race A New Principle Appears, An Idea--that Conserves It; Ideas Only Save Races.

Where The Banana Grows Man Is Sensual And Cruel.

Few People Have Any Next, They Live From Hand To Mouth Without A Plan, And Are Always At The End Of Their Line.

All I Have Seen Teaches Me To Trust The Creator For All I Have Not Seen.

A Man Of Genius Is Privileged Only As Far As He Is Genius. His Dullness Is As Insupportable As Any Other Dullness.

The World Is Plentiful With Honey, But Only The Humble Bee Can Collect It.

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Persis Khambatta

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