Background Image

...

The Right Merchant Is One Who Has The Just Average Of Faculties We Call Common Sense; A Man Of A Strong Affinity For Facts, Who Makes Up His Decision On What He Has Seen. He Is Thoroughly Persuaded Of The Truths Of Arithmetic. There Is Always A Reason, In The Man, For His Good Or Bad Fortune In Making Money. Men Talk As If There Were Some Magic About This. He Knows That All Goes On The Old Road, Pound For Pound, Cent For Cent - For Every Effect A Perfect Cause - And That Good Luck Is Another Name For Tenacity Of Purpose.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Right Merchant Is

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

The Right Merchant Is One Who Has The Just Average Of Faculties We Call Common Sense; A Man Of A Strong Affinity For Facts, Who Makes Up His Decision On What He Has Seen. He Is Thoroughly Persuaded Of The Truths Of Arithmetic. There Is Always A Reason, In The Man, For His Good Or Bad Fortune In Making Money. Men Talk As If There Were Some Magic About This. He Knows That All Goes On The Old Road, Pound For Pound, Cent For Cent - For Every Effect A Perfect Cause - And That Good Luck Is Another Name For Tenacity Of Purpose.

Views: 7

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

There Can Never Be Deep Peace Between Two Spirits, Never Mutual Respect, Until, In Their Dialogue, Each Stands For The Whole World.

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

Let Ideas Establish Their Legitimate Sway Again In Society, Let Life Be Fair And Poetic, And The Scholars Will Gladly Be Lovers, Citizens, And Philanthropists.

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

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

Every Great Man Is Unique.

A Man Must Keep An Eye On His Servants, If He Would Not Have Them Rule Him.

When All Shoot At One Mark, The Gods Join In The Combat.

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

Mysticism Is The Mistake Of An Accidental And Individual Symbol For An Universal One.

Let There Be Worse Cotton And Better Men.

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.

There Are As Many Pillows Of Illusion As Flakes In A Snow-storm. We Wake From One Dream Into Another Dream.

Happy Is The House That Shelters A Friend! It Might Well Be Built, Like A Festal Bower Or Arch, To Entertain Him A Single Day. Happier, If He Know The Solemnity Of That Relation, And Honor Its Law! He Offers Himself A Candidate For That Covenant Comes Up, Like An Olympian, To The Great Games, Where The First- Born Of The World Are The Competitors.

I Am At A Loss To Understand Why People Hold Miss Austen's Novels At So High A Rate, Which Seem To Me Vulgar In Tone, Sterile In Artistic Invention, Imprisoned In Their Wretched Conventions Of English Society, Without Genius, Wit, Or Knowledge Of The World. Never Was Life So Pinched And Narrow. ... All That Interests In Any Character [is This]: Has He (or She) The Money To Marry With? ... Suicide Is More Respectable.

It Does Not To Dwell On Dreams And Forget To Live, But It Is Equally Foolish To Ignore The Past – Never Forget.

The Nonchalance Of Boys Who Are Sure Of A Dinner, And Would Disdain As Much As A Lord To Do Or Say Aught To Conciliate One, Is The Healthy Attitude Of Human Nature.

The Forest Waves, The Morning Breaks, The Pastures Sleep, Ripple The Lakes, Leaves Twinkle, Flowers Like Persons Be And Life Pulsates In Rock Or Tree.

The Americans Have Many Virtues, But They Have Not Faith And Hope. I Know No Two Words Whose Meaning Is More Lost Sight Of.

If A Man Knows The Law, Find Out, Though He Live In A Pine Shanty, And Resort To Him. And If A Man Can Pipe Or Sing, So As To Wrap The Imprisoned Soul In An Elysium; Or Can Paint A Landscape, And Convey Into Souls And Ochres All The Enchantments Of Spring Or Autumn; Or Can Liberate And Intoxicate All People Who Hear Him With Delicious Songs And Verses; It Is Certain That The Secret Cannot Be Kept; The First Witness Tells It To A Second, And Men Go By Fives And Tens And Fifties To His Doors.

It Is Sublime To Think And Say Of Another, I Need Never Meet, Or Speak, Or Write To Him: We Need Not Reinforce Ourselves, Or Send Tokens Of Remembrance; I Rely On Him As On Myself: If He Did Thus And Thus, I Know It Was Right.

Freedom Is The Essence Of This Faith. It Has For Its Object Simply To Make Men Good And Wise. Its Institutions Then Should Be As Flexible As The Wants Of Men. That Form Out Of Which The Life And Suitableness Have Departed Should Be As Worthless In Its Eyes As The Dead Leaves That Are Falling Around Us.

We Judge Of Man's Wisdom By His Hope.

Genius Always Finds Itself A Century Too Early.

There Will Always Be In Society Certain Persons Who Are Mercuries Of Its Approbation, And Whose Glance Will At Any Time Determinefor The Curious Their Standing In The World. These Are The Chamberlains Of The Lesser Gods. Accept Their Coldness As An Omen Of Grace With The Loftier Deities, And Allow Them All Their Privilege.

A Scholar Does Not Wish To Be Always Pumping His Brains; He Wants Gossips.

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

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

To Have Played And Laughed With Enthusiasm, And Sung With Exultation - This To To Have Succeeded.

How Often We Must Remember The Art Of The Surgeon, Which, In Replacing The Broken Bone, Contents Itself With Releasing The Parts From False Position; They Fly Into Place By The Action Of The Muscles. On This Art Of Nature All Our Arts Rely.

The Maker Of A Sentence Launches Out Into The Infinite And Builds A Road Into Chaos And Old Night, And Is Followed By Those Who Hear Him With Something Of Wild, Creative Delight.

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.

The Land Is The Appointed Remedy For Whatever Is False And Fantastic In Our Culture. The Continent We Inhabit Is To Be Physic Andfood For Our Mind, As Well As Our Body. The Land, With Its Tranquilizing, Sanative Influences, Is To Repair The Errors Of A Scholastic And Traditional Education, And Bring Us To Just Relations With Men And Things.

Life Is A Festival Only To The Wise.

True Wit Never Made Us Laugh.

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.

Life Has No Memory. That Which Proceeds In Succession Might Be Remembered, But That Which Is Coexistent, Or Ejaculated From A Deeper Cause, As Yet Far From Being Conscious, Knows Not Its Own Tendency.

Society Will Pardon Much To Genius And Special Gifts; But, Being In Its Nature Conventional, It Loves What Is Conventional, Or What Belongs To Coming Together.

The Masses Have No Habit Of Self-reliance Or Original Action.

Right Is More Beautiful Than Private Affection, And Is Compatible With Universal Wisdom.

And What Is Genius But Finer Love, A Love Impersonal, A Love Of The Flower And Perfection Of Things, And A Desire To Draw A New Picture Or Copy Of The Same? It Looks To The Cause And Life: It Proceeds From Within Outward, Whilst Talent Goes From Without Inward.

Let The Amelioration In Our Laws Of Property Proceed From The Concession Of The Rich, Not From The Grasping Of The Poor. Let Us Understand That The Equitable Rule Is, That No One Should Take More Than His Share, Let Him Be Ever So Rich.

All Vigor Is Contagious.

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

There Are Days When The Great Are Near Us, When There Is No Frown On Their Brow, No Condescension Even; When They Take Us By The Hand, And We Share Their Thought.

Imagination Is A Very High Sort Of Seeing.

Nothing Is Great But The Inexhaustible Wealth Of Nature.

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.

Every Man Takes Care That His Neighbor Shall Not Cheat Him. But A Day Comes When He Begins To Care That He Does Not Cheat His Neighbor. Then All Goes Well. He Has Changed His Market Cart Into A Chariot Of The Sun.

A Man Is A Beggar Who Only Lives To The Useful, And, However He May Serve As A Pin Or Rivet In The Social Machine, Cannot Be Saidto Have Arrived At Self-possession.

The Hero Is Suffered To Be Himself.

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.

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

Congratulate Yourself If You Have Done Something Strange, Extravagant And Broken The Monotony.

A Good Indignation Makes An Excellent Speech.

To Be Gret Is To Be Misunderstood.

Every Industrious Man, In Every Lawful Calling, Is A Useful Man. And One Principal Reason Why Men Are So Often Useless Is That They Neglect Their Own Profession Or Calling, And Divide And Shift Their Attention Among A Multiplicity Of Objects And Pursuits.

If We Must Accept Fate We Are Not Less Compelled To Affirm Liberty, The Significance Of The Individual, The Grandeur Of Duty, The Power Of Character.

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.

The Gift, To Be True, Must Be The Flowing Of The Giver Unto Me, Correspondent To My Flowing Unto Him.

Some Of Your Griefs You Have Cured, And The Sharpest You Still Have Survived, But What Torments Of Grief You've Endured From Evils That Never Arrived.

The Philanthropists Inquire Whether Transcendentalism Does Not Mean Sloth: They Had As Lief Hear That Their Friend Is Dead, As That He Is A Transcendentalist; For Then Is He Paralyzed, And Can Never Do Anything For Humanity.

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.

We May Climb Into The Thin And Cold Realm Of Pure Geometry And Lifeless Science, Or Sink Into That Of Sensation. Between These Extremes Is The Equator Of Life, Of Thought, Or Spirit, Or Poetry,--a Narrow Belt.

Why Should We Grope Among The Dry Bones Of The Past, Or Put The Living Generation Into Masquerade Out Of Its Faded Wardrobe?

In Certain Men Digestion And Sex Absorb The Vital Force, And The Stronger These Are, The Individual Is So Much Weaker. The More Ofthese Drones Perish, The Better For The Hive.

We Fill The Hands And Nurseries Of Our Children With All Manner Of Dolls, Drums And Horses, Withdrawing Their Eyes From The Plain Face And... Nature, The Sun And Moon, The Animals, The Water And Stones, Which Should Be Their Toys.

There Are Not In The World At Any One Time More Than A Dozen Persons Who Read And Understand Plato:-never Enough To Pay For An Edition Of His Works; Yet To Every Generation These Come Duly Down, For The Sake Of Those Few Persons, As If God Brought Them Written In His Hand.

For No Man Can Write Anything Who Does Not Think That What He Writes Is, For The Time, The History Of The World.

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.

I Always Seem To Suffer Some Loss Of Faith On Entering Cities.

Explore, And Explore. Be Neither Chided Nor Flattered Out Of Your Position Of Perpetual Inquiry. Neither Dogmatize Or Accept Another's Dogmatism.

Every Man Is An Impossibility Until He Is Born.

The Society Of The Energetic Class, In Their Friendly And Festive Meetings, Is Full Of Courage, And Of Attempts, Which Intimidatethe Pale Scholar.

The Lover Never Sees Personal Resemblances In His Mistress To Her Kindred Or To Others. His Friends Find In Her A Likeness To Hermother, Or Her Sisters, Or To Persons Not Of Her Blood. The Lover Sees No Resemblance Except To Summer Evenings And Diamond Mornings, To Rainbows And The Song Of Birds.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy.

I Will No Longer Confer, Differ, Refer, Defer, Prefer, Or Suffer. I Renounce The Whole Tribe Of Fero. I Embrace Absolute Life.

Perpetual Modernism Is The Measure Of Merit In Every Work Of Art.

The Bhagavad-gita Is An Empire Of Thought And In Its Philosophical Teachings Krishna Has All The Attributes Of The Full-fledged Montheistic Deity And At The Same Time The Attributes Of The Upanisadic Absolute.

Give Me Truths For I Am Weary Of The Surfaces.

If The Single Man Plant Himself Indomitably On His Instincts, And There Abide, The Huge World Will Come Round To Him.

We Read Often With As Much Talent As We Write.

The Merit Of Those Who Fill A Space In The World's History, Who Are Borne Forward, As It Were, By The Weight Of Thousands Whom They Lead, Shed A Perfume Less Sweet Than Do The Sacrifices Of Private Virtue.

Manners Are Very Communicable: Men Catch Them From Each Other.

Nature Hates Calculators.

Men Have Looked Away From Themselves And At Things So Long That They Have Come To Esteem The Religious, Learned And Civil Institutions As Guards Of Property, And They Deprecate Assaults On These, Because They Feel Them To Be Assaults On Property. They Measure Their Esteem Of Each Other By What Each Has, And Not By What Each Is.

The Perception Of The Comic Is A Tie Of Sympathy With Other Men, A Pledge Of Sanity, And A Protection From Those Perverse Tendencies And Gloomy Insanities In Which Fine Intellects Sometimes Lose Themselves. A Rogue Alive To The Ludicrous Is Still Convertible. If That Sense Is Lost, His Fellow-men Can Do Little For Him.

The Progress Of Religion Is Steadily To Its Identity With Morals. Strength Enters Just As Much As The Moral Element Prevails.

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.

When We Are Young, We Spend Much Time And Pains In Filling Our Note-books With All Definitions Of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, In The Hope That, In The Course Of A Few Years, We Shall Have Condensed Into Our Encyclopaedia The Net Value Of All The Theories At Which The World Has Yet Arrived. But Year After Year Our Tables Get No Completeness, And At Last We Discover That Our Curve Is A Parabola, Whose Arcs Will Never Meet.

[t]omorrow Is A New Day. You Shall Begin It Well & Serenely, & With Too High A Spirit To Be Cumbered With Your Old Nonsense. This Day ... Is Too Dear With Its Hopes & Invitations To Waste A Moment On The Rotten Yesterdays.

Wherever The Truth Is Injured, Defend It.

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

The Essence Of Friendship Is Entireness, A Total Magnanimity And Trust.

When A Man Says To Me, "i Have The Intensest Love Of Nature," At Once I Know That He Has None.

Saving The Earth

Friendship Buys Friendship.

Go Face The Fire At Sea, Or The Cholera In Your Friend's House, Or The Burglar In Your Own, Or What Danger Lies In The Way Of Duty, Knowing You Are Guarded By The Cherubim Of Destiny. If You Believe In Fate To Your Harm, Believe It, At Least, For Your Good.

I Covet Truth; Beauty Is Unripe Childhood's Cheat; I Leave It Behind With The Games Of Youth.

It Is The Doctrine Of The Popular Music-masters, That Whoever Can Speak Can Sing. So, Probably, Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life. Our Temperaments Differ In Capacity Of Heat, Or

We Are Always Getting Ready To Live, But Never Living... The Wave Moves Onward But The Particles Of Which It Is Composed Do Not... It Cannot Be But That At Intervals Throughout Society There Are Real Men Intermixed . . . As The Carpenter Puts One Iron Bar In His Bannister For Every Five Or Six Wooden Ones.

All History Is Biography.

A Painter Told Me That Nobody Could Draw A Tree Without In Some Sort Becoming A Tree.

I Am Sure Of This, That By Going Much Alone A Man Will Get More Of A Noble Courage In Thought And Word Than From All The Wisdom That Is In Books.

All The Great Speakers Were Bad Speakers At First.

Let Us Not Be Too Much Acquainted. I Would Have A Man Enter His House Through A Hall Filled With Heroic And Sacred Sculptures, That He Might Not Want The Hint Of Tranquillity And Self-poise.

Ideas Must Work Through The Brains And The Arms Of Good And Brave Men Or They Are No Better Than Dreams.

Good Manners Are Made Up Of Petty Sacrifices.

I Like A Man Who Likes To See A Fine Barn As Well As A Good Tragedy.

When You Have Worn Out Yourshoes, The Strength Of The Shoe Leather Has Passed Into The Fiber Ofyour Body. I Measure Your Health By The Number Of Shoes And Hats Andclothes You Have Worn Out.

We Are Rich Only Through What We Give, And Poor Only Through What We Refuse.

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

The Axioms Of Physics Translate The Laws Of Ethics. Thus, "the Whole Is Greater Than Its Part;" "reaction Is Equal To Action;" "the Smallest Weight May Be Made To Lift The Greatest, The Difference Of Weight Being Compensated By Time;" And Many The Like Propositions, Which Have An Ethical As Well As Physical Sense. These Propositions Have A Much More Extensive And Universal Sense When Applied To Human Life, Than When Confined To Technical Use.

For Every Grain Of Wit There Is A Grain Of Folly.

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.

Why Should The Way I Feel Depend On The Thoughts In Someone Else's Head?

The Have A Good Friend Is One Of The Greatest Delights Of Life.

I Have Sometimes Thought That, In Order To Be A Good Minister, It Was Necessary To Leave The Ministry. The Profession Is Antiquated. In An Altered Age, We Worship In The Dead Forms Of Our Forefathers.

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

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

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.

To Fill The Hour; That Is Happiness To Fill The Hour, And Leave No Crevice For A Repentance Or An Approval.

Good Nature Is Stronger Than Tomahawks.

Every Materialist Will Be An Idealist; But An Idealist Can Never Go Backward To Be A Materialist.

Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends. We're So Glad You Could Attend, Come Inside, Come Inside.

Will Is The Measure Of Power. To A Great Genius There Must Be A Great Will. If The Thought Is Not A Lamp To The Will, Does Not Proceed To An Act, The Wise Are Imbecile. He Alone Is Strong And Happy Who Has A Will. The Rest Are Herds. He Uses; They Are Used. He Is Of The Maker; They Are Of The Made. Will Is Always Miraculous, Being The Presence Of God To Men. When It Appears In A Man He Is A Hero, And All Metaphysics Are At Fault.

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.'

Go Out Of The House To See The Moon, And 't Is Mere Tinsel; It Will Not Please As When Its Light Shines Upon Your Necessary Journey. The Beauty That Shimmers In The Yellow Afternoons Of October, Who Could Ever Clutch It? Go Forth To Find It, And It Is Gone: 't Is Only A Mirage As You Look From The Windows Of Diligence.

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.

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.

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

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage. Whatever Course You Decide Upon, There Is Always Someone To Tell You That You Are Wrong. There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right. To Map Out A Course Of Action And Follow It To An End Requires Some Of The Same Courage That A Soldier Needs. Peace Has Its Victories, But It Takes Brave Men And Women To Win Them.

Be As Beneficent As The Sun Or The Sea, But If Your Rights As A Rational Being Are Trenched On, Die On The First Inch Of Your Territory.

Live, Let Live, And Help Live

There Are Three Wants Which Never Can Be Satisfied: That Of The Rich, Who Wants Something More; That Of The Sick, Who Wants Something Different; And That Of The Traveler, Who Says Anywhere But Here.

Society Has No Bribe For Me.

I Unsettle All Things.

Whoever Fights, Whoever Falls, Justice Conquers Evermore

No Man Acquires Property Without Acquiring With It A Little Arithmetic Also.

There Is More In Every Person's Soul Than We Think.

The Secret Of Poetry Is Never Explained,— Is Always New. We Have Not Got Farther Than Mere Wonder At The Delicacy Of The Touch, And The Eternity It Inherits. In Every House A Child That In Mere Play Utters Oracles, And Knows Not That They Are Such. 't Is As Easy As Breath. 't Is Like This Gravity, Which Holds The Universe Together, And None Knows What It Is.

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

What Can We See, Read, Acquire, But Ourselves. Take The Book, My Friend, And Read Your Eyes Out, You Will Never Find There What I Find.

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

We Sometimes Observe That Spoiled Children Contract A Habit Of Annoying Quite Wantonly Those Who Have Charge Of Them, And Seem Tomeasure Their Own Sense Of Well-being, Not By What They Do, But By The Degree Of Reaction They Can Cause. It Is Vain To Get Rid Of Them By Not Minding Them: If Purring And Humming Is Not Noticed, They Squeal And Screech; Then If You Chide And Console Them, They Find The Experiment Succeeds, And They Begin Again. The Child Will Sit In Your Arms Contented If You Do Nothing. If You Take A Book And Read, He Commences Hostile Operations.

All Mankind Love A Lover.

Every Reform Was Once A Private Opinion, And When It Shall Be A Private Opinion Again, It Will Solve The Problem Of The Age.

We Hear Eagerly Every Thought And Word Quoted From An Intellectual Man. But In His Presence Our Own Mind Is Roused To Activity, And We Forget Very Fast What He Says.

The Art Of Sculpture Is Long Ago Perished To Any Real Effect... It Is The Game Of A Rude And Youthful People, And Not The Manly Labour Of A Wise And Spiritual Nation.

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

Men Of Sense Esteem Wealth To Be The Assimilation Of Nature To Themselves, The Converting Of The Sap And Juices Of The Planet To The Incarnation And Nutriment Of Their Design.

There Are Men Who, By Their Sympathetic Attractions, Carry Nations With Them, And Lead The Activity Of The Human Race.

A Poet Is No Rattlebrain, Saying What Comes Uppermost, And, Because He Says Every Thing, Saying, At Last, Something Good; But A Heart In Unison With His Time And Country. There Is Nothing Whimsical Or Fantastic In His Production, But Sweet And Sad Earnest, Freighted With The Weightiest Convictions, And Pointed With The Most Determined Aim Which Any Man Or Class Knows Of In His Times.

I Like To Be Beholden To The Great Metropolitan English Speech, The Sea Which Receives Tributaries From Every Region Under Heaven.

Always Pay; For First Or Last You Must Pay Your Entire Debt.

Prayer As A Means To Effect A Private End Is Theft And Meanness.

Insist Upon Yourself. Be Original.

Funny Basketball

A Person's Life Is Limited But Serving The People Is Limitless. I Want To Devote My Limited Life To Serving The People Limitlessly.

The Charming Landscape Which I Saw This Morning Is Indubitably Made Up Of Some Twenty Or Thirty Farms. Miller Owns This Field, Locke That, And Manning The Woodland Beyond. But None Of Them Owns The Landscape. There Is Property In The Horizon Which No Man Has But He Whose Eye Can Integrate All Parts, That Is, The Poet. This Is The Best Part Of These Men's Farms, Yet To This Their Warranty-deeds Give No Title.

Let The Words Be Gazetted And Ridiculous Henceforward.

When I Read A Good Book, I Wish My Life Were Three Thousand Years Long.

To The Body And Mind Which Have Been Cramped By Noxious Work Or Company, Nature Is Medicinal And Restores Their Tone.

Everything In The Universe Goes By Indirection. There Are No Straight Lines.

We Are Shut Up In School And College Recitation Rooms For Ten To Fifteen Years, And Come Out At Last With A Bellyful Of Words And Do Not Know A Thing. We Cannot Use Our Hands, Or Our Legs, Or Our Eyes, Or Our Arms. We Do Not Know An Edible Root In The Woods. We Cannot Tell Our Course By The Stars, Nor The Hour Of Day By The Sun. It Is Well If We Can Swim And Skate. We Are Afraid Of A Horse Or A Cow, Of A Dog, Of A Cat, Of A Spider. Far Better Was The Roman Rule To Teach A Boy Nothing That He Could Not Learn Standing.

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.

Language Is The Archives Of History.

I Believe That Our Own Experience Instructs Us That 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. By Your Tampering And Thwarting And Too Much Governing He May Be Hindered From His End And Kept Out Of His Own. Respect The Child. Wait And See The New Product Of Nature. Nature Loves Analogies, But Not Repetitions. Respect The Child. Be Not Too Much His Parent. Trespass Not On His Solitude.

So Shall We Come To Look At The World With New Eyes.

Without Ambition One Starts Nothing. Without Work One Finishes Nothing. The Prize Will Not Be Sent To You. You Have To Win It.

Character Is An Invincible Force, Which Acts By Presence And Without Means

As The Farmer Casts Into The Ground The Finest Ears Of His Grain, The Time Will Come When We Too Shall Hold Nothing Back, But Shall Eagerly Convert More Than We Now Possess Into Means And Powers, When We Shall Be Willing To Sow The Sun And The Moon For Seeds.

Physical Force Has No Value, Where There Is Nothing Else. Snow In Snow-banks, Fire In Volcanoes And Solfataras Is Cheap. The Luxury Of Ice Is In Tropical Countries, And Midsummer Days. The Luxury Of Fire Is, To Have A Little On Our Hearth; And Of Electricity, Not The Volleys Of The Charged Cloud, But The Manageable Stream On The Battery-wires. So Of Spirit, Or Energy; The Rests Or Remains Of It In The Civil And Moral Man, Are Worth All The Cannibals In The Pacific.

Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Every One Of Its Members. The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity. Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote. In Fact, It Is As Difficult To Appropriate The Thoughts Of Others As It Is To Invent.

Spoons And Skimmers You Can Be Undistinguishably Together; But Vases And Statues Require Each A Pedestal For Itself.

What We Call Results Are Beginnings.

Power Is What They Want, Not Candy-power To Execute Their Design, Power To Give Legs And Feet, Form And Actuality To Their Thought; Which, To A Clear-sighted Man, Appears The End For Which The Universe Exists, And All Its Resources Might Be Well Applied.

Chiefly The Sea-shore Has Been The Point Of Departure To Knowledge, As To Commerce. The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most.

Every Day, The Sun; And, After Sunset, Night And Her Stars. Ever The Winds Blow; Ever The Grass Grows. Every Day, Men And Women, Conversing, Beholding And Beholden. The Scholar Is He Of All Men Whom This Spectacle Most Engages. He Must Settle Its Value In His Mind. What Is Nature To Him?

Literature Is Eavesdropping.

The Influence Of Fine Scenery, The Presence Of Mountains, Appeases Our Irritations And Elevates Our Friendships.

Man Is A Shrewd Inventor, And Is Ever Taking The Hint Of A New Machine From His Own Structure, Adapting Some Secret Of His Own Anatomy In Iron, Wood, And Leather, To Some Required Function In The Work Of The World.

The Powers Of The Soul Are Commensurate With Its Needs.

Truth Is Too Simple For Us: We Do Not Like Those Who Unmask Our Illusions.

So Much Of Our Time Is Spent In Preparation, So Much In Routine, And So Much In Retrospect, That The Amount Of Each Person's Genius Is Confined To A Very Few Hours.

A Little Fact Is Worth A Whole Limbo Of Dreams.

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

Love Is Like A Hunter, Who Cares Not For The Game When Once Caught, Which He May Have Pursued With The Most Intense And Breathless Eagerness. Love Is Strongest In Pursuit; Friendship In Possession.

What A Searching Preacher Of Self-command Is The Varying Phenomenon Of Health.

What Is The Foundation Of That Interest All Men Feel In Greek History, Letters, Art, And Poetry, In All Its Periods, From The Heroic Or Homeric Age Down To The Domestic Life Of The Athenians And Spartans, Four Or Five Centuries Later? What But This, That Every Man Passes Personally Through A Grecian Period.

I Like The Silent Church Before The Service Begins, Better Than Any Preaching. How Far Off, How Cool, How Chaste The Persons Look,begirt Each One With A Precinct Or Sanctuary!

My Hours Are Peaceful Centuries.

The Less Government We Have The Better.

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.

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

Health, South Wind, Books, Old Trees, A Boat, A Friend.

Let Him Be Great, And Love Shall Follow Him. Nothing Is More Deeply Punished Than The Neglect Of The Affinities By Which Alone Society Should Be Formed, And The Insane Levity Of Choosing Associates By Others Eyes.

The Poet A Moody Child And Wildly Wise Pursued The Game With Joyful Eyes, Which Chose, Like Meteors, Their Way, And Rived The Dark With Private Ray: They Overleapt The Horizon's Edge, Searched With Apollo's Privilege; Through Man, And Woman, And Sea, And Star, Saw The Dance Of Nature Forward Far; Through Worlds, And Races, And Terms, And Times, Saw Musical Order, And Pairing Rhymes. Olympian Bards Who Sung Divine Ideas Below, Which Always Find Us Young, And Always Keep Us So.

The Stars Awaken A Certain Reverence, Because Though Always Present, They Are Inaccessible; But All Natural Objects Make A Kindred Impression, When The Mind Is Open To Their Influence. Nature Never Wears A Mean Appearance. Neither Does The Wisest Man Extort Her Secret, And Lose His Curiosity By Finding Out All Her Perfection. Nature Never Became A Toy To A Wise Spirit. The Flowers, The Animals, The Mountains, Reflected The Wisdom Of His Best Hour, As Much As They Had Delighted The Simplicity Of His Childhood.

The Escape From All False Ties; Courage To Be What We Are; And Love Of What Is Simple And Beautiful; Independence, And Cheerful Relation, These Are The Essentials.

Wit Makes Its Own Welcome, And Levels All Distinction. No Dignity, No Learning, No Force Of Character, Can Make Any Stand Against Good Wit. It Is Like Ice, On Which No Beauty Of Form, No Majesty Of Carriage, Can Plead Any Immunity; They Must Walk Gingerly, According To The Laws Of Ice, Or Down They Must Go, Dignity And All.

Trending Author

Category