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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?

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Sea Is Masculine,

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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?

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

Enthusiasm Is One Of The Most Powerful Engines Of Success. When You Do A Thing, Do It With All Your Might. Put Your Whole Soul Into It. Stamp It With Your Own Personality. Be Active, Be Energetic, Be Enthusiastic And Faithful, And You Will Accomplish Your Object. Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm.

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

The Ancestor Of Every Action Is A Thought.

Positive Thinking

The Years In Your Life Are Less Important Than The Life In Your Years.

The Vocabulary Of An Omniscient Man Would Embrace Words And Images Excluded From Polite Conversation. What Would Be Base, Or Even Obscene, To The Obscene, Becomes Illustrious, Spoken In A New Connexion Of Thought.

The History Of Reform Is Always Identical; It Is The Comparison Of The Idea With The Fact. Our Modes Of Living Are Not Agreeable To Our Imagination. We Suspect They Are Unworthy. We Arraign Our Daily Employments.

Many A Reformer Perishes In His Removal Of Rubbish,--and That Makes The Offensiveness Of The Class. They Are Partial; They Are Notequal To The Work They Pretend. They Lose Their Way; In The Assault On The Kingdom Of Darkness, They Expend All Their Energy On Some Accidental Evil, And Lose Their Sanity And Power Of Benefit.

We Put Our Love Where We Have Put Our Labor.

Remarkable Trait In The American Character Is The Union, Not Very Infrequent, Of Yankee Cleverness With Spiritualism.

If You Believe In The Soul, Do Not Clutch At Sensual Sweetness Before It Is Ripe On The Slow Tree Of Cause And Effect.

I Would Study, I Would Know, I Would Admire Forever.

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.

I Appeal Now To The Convictions Of The Communicants, And Ask Such Persons Whether They Have Not Been Occasionally Conscious Of A Painful Confusion Of Thought Between The Worship Due To God And The Commemoration Due To Christ.

God Screens Us Evermore From Premature Ideas.

The Order Of Things Consents To Virtue.

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

Solitude, The Safeguard Of Mediocrity, Is To Genius, The Stern Friend, The Cold, Obscure Shelter Where Moult The Wings Which Will Bear It Farther Than Suns And Stars.

The Sermon Which I Write Inquisitive Of Truth Is Good A Year After, But That Which Is Written Because A Sermon Must Be Writ Is Musty The Next Day.

History Is Full, Down To This Day, Of The Imbecility Of Kings And Governors. They Are A Class Of Persons Much To Be Pitied, For They Know Not What They Should Do.

The Laws Of Light And Of Heat Translate Each Other;-so Do The Laws Of Sound And Colour; And So Galvanism, Electricity And Magnetism Are Varied Forms Of This Selfsame Energy.

It Is Handsomer To Remain In The Establishment Better Than The Establishment, And Conduct That In The Best Manner, Than To Make Asally Against Evil By Some Single Improvement, Without Supporting It By A Total Regeneration.

Our Friends Early Appear To Us As Representatives Of Certain Ideas, Which They Never Pass Or Exceed. They Stand On The Brink Of The Ocean Of Thought And Power, But They Never Take A Single Step That Would Bring Them There.

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.

There Never Was A Strong Character That Was Not Made Strong By Discipline Of The Will; There Never Was A Strong People That Did Not Rank Subordination And Discipline Among The Signal Virtues. Subjection To Moods Is The Mark Of A Deteriorating Morality. There Is No Baser Servitude Than That Of The Man Whose Caprices Are His Masters, And A Nation Composed Of Such Men Could Not Long Preserve Its Liberties.

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

How Much More The Seeker Of Abstract Truth, Who Needs Periods Of Isolation, And Rapt Concentration, And Almost A Going Out Of Thebody To Think!

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.

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.

That Which We Do Not Believe, We Cannot Adequately Say; Even Though We May Repeat The Words Ever So Often.

True Wit Never Made Us Laugh.

We Do Not Live An Equal Life, But One Of Contrasts And Patchwork; Now A Little Joy, Then A Sorrow, Now A Sin, Then A Generous Or Brave Action.

In Dreams We Are True Poets; We Create The Persons Of The Drama; We Give Them Appropriate Figures Faces, Costumes; They Are Perfect In Their Organs, Attitudes, Manners; Moreover They Speak After Their Own Characters, Not Ours; And We Listen With Surprise To What They Say.

Let A Man Learn To Look For The Permanent In The Mutable And Fleeting; Let Him Learn To Bear The Disappearance Of Things He Was Wont To Reverence; Without Losing His Reverence; Let Him Learn That He Is Here, Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon; And That, Though Abyss Open Under Abyss, And Opinion Displace Opinion, All Are At Last Contained In The Eternal Cause.

Who Looks Upon A River In A Meditative Hour And Is Not Reminded Of The Flux Of All Things?

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

Steam Is No Stronger Now Than It Was A Hundred Years Ago, But It Is Put To Better Use.

Knowledge Is The Antidote To Fear. [especially As Fear Often Stands For False Evidence Appearing Real!]

The Astonishment Of Life Is The Absence Of Any Appearances Of Reconciliation Between The Theory And The Practice Of Life.

A Mob Cannot Be A Permanency: Everybody's Interest Requires That It Should Not Exist, And Only Justice Satisfies All.

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

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

Poetry Teaches The Enormous Force Of A Few Words, And, In Proportion To The Inspiration, Checks Loquacity.

Nature Is Saturated With Deity.

Whatever We Think And Say Is Wonderfully Better For Our Spirits And Trust In Another Mouth.

What Is Originality? It Is Being One's Self, And Reporting Accurately What We See And Are.

Quotation Confesses Inferiority.

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

To Believe In Luck ... Is Skepticism.

The World Proceeds From The Same Spirit As The Body Of Man. It Is A Remoter And Inferior Incarnation Of God, A Projection Of God In The Unconscious.

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

If You Meet A Sectary, Or A Hostile Partisan, Never Recognize The Dividing Lines; But Meet On What Common Ground Remains,--if Onlythat The Sun Shines, And The Rain Rains For Both; The Area Will Widen Very Fast, And Ere You Know It The Boundary Mountains, On Which The Eye Had Fastened, Have Melted Into Air.

There Is Also Something Excellent In Every Audience,--the Capacity Of Virtue. They Are Ready To Be Beatified.

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

Wisdom Is Infused Into Every Form.

Time Dissipates To Shining Ether The Solid Angularity Of Facts.

Shakespeare Will Never Be Made By The Study Of Shakespeare.

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.

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

A Right Rule For A Club Would Be, Admit No Man Whose Presence Excludes Any One Topic. It Requires People Who Are Not Surprised Andshocked, Who Do And Let Do, And Let Be, Who Sink Trifles, And Know Solid Values, And Who Take A Great Deal For Granted.

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.

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

A Little Consideration Of What Takes Place Around Us Every Day Would Show Us That A Higher Law Than That Of Our Will Regulates Events; That Our Painful Labors Are Unnecessary And Fruitless; That Only In Our Easy, Simple, Spontaneous Action Are We Strong . . . . Place Yourself In The Middle Of The Stream Of Power And Wisdom Which Animates All Whom It Floats, And You Are Without Effort Impelled To Truth, To Right, And A Perfect Contentment.

Every Man Passes His Life In The Search After Friendship.

A Great Man Scarcely Knows How He Dines, How He Dresses; But Without Railing Or Precision, His Living Is Natural And Poetic.

Science Is Nothing But The Finding Of Analogy, Identity, In The Most Remote Parts.

The Religion That Is Afraid Of Science Dishonors God And Commits Suicide. Every Influx Of Atheism, Of Skepticism, Is Thus Made Useful As A Mercury Pill Assaulting And Removing A Diseased Religion, And Making Way For Truth.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Picture Which Drives All Beholders Nobly Mad.

When The Vain Speaker Has Sat Down, And The People Say 'what A Good Speech,' It Still Takes An Ounce To Balance An Ounce.

Yet America Is A Poem In Our Eyes; Its Ample Geography Dazzles The Imagination, And It Will Not Wait Long For Metres.

Nor Has Science Sufficient Humanity, So Long As The Naturalist Overlooks The Wonderful Congruity Which Subsists Between Man And The World; Of Which He Is Lord, Not Because He Is The Most Subtile Inhabitant, But Because He Is Its Head And Heart, And Finds Something Of Himself In Every Great And Small Thing, In Every Mountain Stratum, In Every New Law Of Color, Fact Of Astronomy, Or Atmospheric Influence Which Observation Or Analysis Lay Open.

Alas For The Unhappy Man That Is Called To Stand In The Pulpit, And Not Give The Bread Of Life.

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

A Strenuous Soul Hates Cheap Success.

The Mass Of Men Worry Themselves Into Nameless Graves While Here And There A Great Unselfish Soul Forgets Himself Into Immortality.

Genius, Even, As It Is The Greatest Good, Is He Greatest Harm.

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

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.

The Key To Every Man Is His Thought. Sturdy And Defying Though He Look, He Has A Helm Which He Obeys, Which Is The Idea After Which All His Facts Are Classified. He Can Only Be Reformed By Showing Him A New Idea Which Commands His Own.

Children Are All Foreigners.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage.

A Hero Is A Man Who Is Afraid To Run Away.

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

Popularity Is For Dolls.

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

The Lover Of Letters Loves Power Too.

He Takes Men Out Of Time And Makes Them Feel Eternity.

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

I Hate The Prostitution Of The Name Of Friendship To Signify Modish And Worldly Alliances.

Crime And Punishment Grow Out Of One Stem.

The Men Who Carry Their Points Do Not Need To Inquire Of Their Constituents What They Should Say, But Are Themselves The Country Which They Represent: Nowhere Are Its Emotions Or Opinions So Instant And So True As In Them; Nowhere So Pure From A Selfish Infusion.

He Only Is A Well-made Man Who Has A Good Determination. And The End Of Culture Is Not To Destroy This, God Forbid! But To Train Away All Impediment And Mixture And Leave Nothing But Pure Power.

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

Nature Turns All Malfaisance To Good.

No Man Can Quite Emancipate Himself From His Age And Country, Or Produce A Model In Which The Education, The Religion, The Politics, Usages, And Arts, Of His Times Shall Have No Share.

The Soul Knows Only The Soul; The Web Of Events Is The Flowing Robe In Which She Is Clothed.

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

Life Is A Perpetual Instruction In Cause And Effect.

The Method Of Nature: Who Could Ever Analyze It?

Many A Profound Genius, I Suppose, Who Fills The World With Fame Of His Exploding Renowned Errors, Is Yet Everyday Posed And Baffled By Trivial Questions At His Own Supper Table.

Picture And Sculpture Are The Celebrations And Festivities Of Form.

Repose And Cheerfulness Are The Badge Of The Gentleman - Repose In Energy. The Greek Battle Pieces Are Calm; The Heroes, In Whatever Violent Actions Engaged, Retain A Serene Aspect.

The New Statement Is Always Hated By The Old, And, To Those Dwelling In The Old, Comes Like An Abyss Of Skepticism.

If I Could Put My Hand On The North Star, Would It Be As Beautiful? The Sea Is Lovely, But When We Bathe In It The Beauty Forsakesall The Near Water. For The Imagination And Senses Cannot Be Gratified At The Same Time.

There Are Men Too Superior To Be Seen Except By A Few, As There Are Notes Too High For The Scale Of Most Ears.

All Science Is Transcendental Or Else Passes Away.

A Seashell Should Be The Crest Of England, Not Only Because It Represents A Power Built On The Waves, But Also The Hard Finish Ofthe Men. The Englishman Is Finished Like A Cowry Or A Murex.

With Thought, With The Ideal, Is Immortal Hilarity, The Rose Of Joy. Round It All The Muses Sing.

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.

Books Are The Best Of Things If Well Used; If Abused, Among The Worst. They Are Good For Nothing But To Inspire. I Had Better Never See A Book Than Be Warped By Its Attraction Clean Out Of My Own Orbit, And Made A Satellite Instead Of A System.

The Word Miracle, As Pronounced By Christian Churches, Gives A False Impression; It Is Monster. It Is Not One With The Blowing Clover And The Falling Rain.

The Last Change In Our Point Of View Gives The Whole World A Pictorial Air.

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.

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.

Religious Literature Has Eminent Examples, And If We Run Over Our Private List Of Poets, Critics, Philanthropists And Philosophers, We Shall Find Them Infected With This Dropsy And Elephantiasis, Which We Ought To Have Tapped.

What Care Though Rival Cities Soar Along The Stormy Coast, Penn's Town, New York, Baltimore, If Boston Knew The Most!

Our Day Of Dependence, Our Long Apprenticeship To The Learning Of Other Lands, Draws To A Close. The Millions, That Around Us Arerushing Into Life, Cannot Always Be Fed On The Sere Remains Of Foreign Harvests.

The Moment We Indulge Our Affections, The Earth Is Metamorphosed.

Do What You're Afraid To Do.

A System-grinder Hates The Truth.

The World Is So Beautiful That I Can Hardly Believe It Exists.

Ah Fate, Cannot A Man Be Wise Without A Beard? East, West, From Beer To Dan, Say, Was It Never Heard That Wisdom Might In Youth Be Gotten, Or Wit Be Ripe Before 't Was Rotten?

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

One Of The Illusions Of Life Is That The Present Hour Is Not The Critical Decisive Hour. Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day Of The Year. He Only Is Right Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded By Worry, Fret And Anxiety. Finish Every Day, And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could.

I Like To Have A Person's Knowledge Comprehend More Than One Class Of Topics, One Row Of Shelves. I Like A Person Who Likes To See A Fine Barn As Well As A Good Tragedy.

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

What You Are Shouts At Me So Loudly That I Can't Hear A Word You Say.

I Suppose An Entire Cabinet Of Shells Would Be An Expression Of The Whole Human Mind; A Flora Of The Whole Globe Would Be So Likewise, Or A History Of Beasts; Or A Painting Of All The Aspects Of The Clouds. Everything Is Significant.

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

I Think No Virtue Goes With Size;the Reason Of All Cowardiceis, That Men Are Overgrown,and, To Be Valiant, Must Come Downto The Titmouse Dimension.

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

This Book Of Montaigne The World Has Endorsed By Translating It Into All Tongues.

Do Not Fear To Put Novels Into The Hands Of Young People As An Occasional Holiday Experiment, But Above All, Good Poetry In All Kinds,--epic, Tragedy, Lyric. If We Can Touch The Imagination, We Serve Them; They Will Never Forget It.

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

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

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.

I Look On Trade And Every Mechanical Craft As Education Also. But Let Me Discriminate What Is Precious Herein. There Is In Each Ofthese Works An Act Of Invention, An Intellectual Step, Or Short Series Of Steps Taken; That Act Or Step Is The Spiritual Act; All The Rest Is Mere Repetition Of The Same A Thousand Times.

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.

Beauty Through My Senses Stole; I Yielded Myself To The Perfect Whole.

Fear Is Cruel And Mean.

Life Too Near Paralyses Art.

You've Got To Be Taught To Be Afraid Of People Whose Eyes Are Oddly Made And People Whose Skin Is A Different Shade.

The Heroic Soul Does Not Sell Its Justice And Its Nobleness. It Does Not Ask To Dine Nicely And To Sleep Warm. The Essence Of Greatness Is The Perception That Virtue Is Enough. Poverty Is Its Ornament. It Does Not Need Plenty, And Can Very Well Abide Its Loss.

We Cannot Describe The Natural History Of The Soul, But We Know That It Is Divine. All Things Are Known To The Soul. It Is Not To Be Surprised By Any Communication. Nothing Can Be Greater Than It, Let Those Fear And Those Fawn Who Will. The Soul Is In Her Native Realm; And It Is Wider Than Space, Older Than Time, Wide As Hope, Rich As Love. Pusillanimity And Fear She Refuses With A Beautiful Scorn; They Are Not For Her Who Putteth On Her Coronation Robes, And Goes Out Through Universal Love To Universal Power.

To Be A Man Is To Be A Nonconformist.

To Me, However, The Question Of The Times Resolved Itself Into A Practical Question Of The Conduct Of Life. How Shall I Live? We Are Incompetent To Solve The Times. Our Geometry Cannot Span The Huge Orbits Of The Prevailing Ideas, Behold Their Return, And Reconcile Their Opposition. We Can Only Obey Our Own Polarity.

What Is The City In Which We Sit Here, But An Aggregate Of Incongruous Materials, Which Have Obeyed The Will Of Some Man?

If There Is Any Period One Would Desire To Be Born In, Is It Not The Age Of Revolution; When The Old And The New Stand Side By Side, And Admit Of Being Compared; When The Energies Of All Men Are Searched By Fear And By Hope; When The Historic Glories Of The Old Can Be Compensated By The Rich Possibilities Of The New Era?

Government Has Come To Be A Trade, And Is Managed Solely On Commercial Principles. A Man Plunges Into Politics To Make His Fortune, And Only Cares That The World Shall Last His Days.

There Are Only Ten Minutes In The Life Of A Pear When It Is Perfect To Eat.

Idealism Sees The World In God. It Beholds The Whole Circle Of Persons And Things, Of Actions And Events, Of Country And Religion,not As Painfully Accumulated, Atom After Atom, Act After Act, In An Aged Creeping Past, But As One Vast Picture, Which God Paints On The Instant Eternity, For The Contemplation Of The Soul.

What We Call Results Are Beginnings.

There Is Some Awe Mixed With The Joy Of Our Surprise, When This Poet, Who Lived In Some Past World, Two Or Three Hundred Years Ago, Says That Which Lies Close To My Own Soul, That Which I Also Had Wellnigh Thought And Said.

Philosophically Considered, The Universe Is Composed Of Nature And The Soul.

Life Will Show You Masks That Are Worth All Your Carnivals

When I Bought My Farm, I Did Not Know What A Bargain I Had In The Bluebirds, Daffodils And Thrushes; As Little Did I Know What Sublime Mornings And Sunsets I Was Buying.

That For Which Paul Lived And Died So Gloriously; That For Which Jesus Gave Himself To Be Crucified; The End That Animated The Thousand Martyrs And Heroes Who Have Followed His Steps, Was To Redeem Us From A Formal Religion, And Teach Us To Seek Our Well-being In The Formation Of The Soul.

But Genius Is Religious. It Is A Larger Imbibing Of The Common Heart.

Our Best Thoughts Come From Others.

For The Existing World Is Not A Dream, And Cannot With Impunity Be Treated As A Dream; Neither Is It A Disease; But It Is The Ground On Which You Stand, It Is The Mother Of Whom You Were Born.

Evil Is Merely Privative, Not Absolute: It Is Like Cold, Which Is The Privation Of Beat.

We Gain The Strength Of The Temptation We Resist.

We, As We Read, Must Become Greeks, Romans, Turks, Priest And King, Martyr And Executioner; Must Fasten These Images To Some Reality In Our Secret Experience, Or We Shall Learn Nothing Rightly.

Is It Not Better To Intimate Our Astonishment As We Pass Through This World If It Be Only For A Moment Ere We Are Swallowed Up In The Yeast Of The Abyss? I Will Lift Up My Hands And Say Kosmos.

Man Was Born To Be Rich, Or Grow Rich By Use Of His Faculties, By The Union Of Thought With Nature. Property Is An Intellectual Production. The Game Requires Coolness, Right Reasoning, Promptness, And Patience In The Players.

Character Repudiates Intellect, Yet Excites It; And Character Passes Into Thought, Is Published So, And Then Is Ashamed Before Newflashes Of Moral Worth.

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.

It Is Not Length Of Life, But Depth Of Life.

Far Or Forgot To Me Is Near; Shadow And Sunlight Are The Same; The Vanished Gods To Me Appear; And One To Me Are Shame And Fame.they Reckon Ill Who Leave Me Out; When Me They Fly, I Am The Wings; I Am The Doubter And The Doubt, And I The Hymn The Brahmin Sings.

It Is The Essence Of Poetry To Spring, Like The Rainbow Daughter Of Wonder, From The Invisible, To Abolish The Past, And Refuse All History.

I Hope In These Days We Have Heard The Last Of Conformity And Consistency. Let The Words Be Gazetted And Ridiculous Henceforward.instead Of The Gong For Dinner, Let Us Hear A Whistle From The Spartan Fife.

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

The Gothic Cathedral Is A Blossoming In Stone Subdued By The Insatiable Demand Of Harmony In Man.

We Lie In The Lap Of Immense Intelligence, Which Makes Us Receivers Of Its Truth And Organ Of Its Activity. When We Discern Justice, When We Discern Truth, We Do Nothing By Ourselves, But Allow A Passage To Its Beams. If We Ask Whence This Comes, If We Seek To Pry Into The Soul That Causes, All Philosophy Is At Fault. Its Presence Or Its Absence Is All We Can Affirm.

Cultivate The Habit Of Being Grateful... And ...give Thanks Continuously.

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.

Yet These Uneasy Pleasures And Fine Pains Are For Curiosity, And Not For Life.

The Eye Is Easily Frightened.

The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.

The Time Is Coming When All Men Will See That The Gift Of God To The Soul Is Not A Vaunting, Overpowering, Excluding Sanctity, Buta Sweet, Natural Goodness, A Goodness Like Thine And Mine, And That So Invites Thine And Mine To Be And To Grow.

Flowers So Strictly Belong To Youth, That We Adult Men Soon Come To Feel, That Their Beautiful Generations Concern Not Us: We Havehad Our Day; Now Let The Children Have Theirs. The Flowers Jilt Us, And We Are Old Bachelors With Our Ridiculous Tenderness.

The Thing Done Avails, And Not What Is Said About It.

It Is Vain To Keep A Secret From One Who Has A Right To Know It. It Will Tell Itself.

It Is A Fact Often Observed, That Men Have Written Good Verses Under The Inspiration Of Passion, Who Cannot Write Well Under Other Circumstances.

A Man Must Consider What A Rich Realm He Abdicates When He Becomes A Conformist.

Being Different

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies.

We Are Always Getting Ready To Live But Never Living.

Law Of Attraction

Improve Your Spare Moments And They Will Become The Brightest Gems In Your Life.

Sometimes A Scream Is Better Than A Thesis.

If With Love Thy Heart Has Burned; If Thy Love Is Unreturned; Hide Thy Grief Within Thy Breast, Though It Tear Thee Unexpressed; For When Love Has Once Departed From The Eyes Of The False-hearted, And One By One Has Torn Off Quite The Bandages Of Purple Light; Though Thou Wert The Loveliest Form The Soul Had Ever Dressed, Thou Shalt Seem, In Each Reply, A Vixen To His Altered Eye; Thy Softest Pleadings Seem Too Bold, Thy Praying Lute Will Seem To Scold; Though Thou Kept The Straightest Road, Yet Thou Errest Far And Broad.

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

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

An Artist Spends Himself Like The Crayon In His Hand, Till He Is All Gone.

If You Would Know What Nobody Knows, Read What Everybody Reads, Just One Year Afterwards.

The Man Who Renounces Himself, Comes To Himself.

Read Proudly--put The Duty Of Being Read Invariably On The Author. If He Is Not Read, Whose Fault Is It? I Am Quite Ready To Be Charmed, But I Shall Not Make-believe I Am Charmed.

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

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

Saving The Earth

There Is No Teaching Until The Pupil Is Brought Into The Same State Or Principle In Which You Are; A Transfusion Takes Place; He Is You, And You Are He; Then Is A Teaching; And By No Unfriendly Chance Or Bad Company Can He Ever Lose The Benefit.

We Are Ashamed Of Our Thoughts And Often See Them Brought Forth By Others.

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