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The Sea, Washing The Equator And The Poles, Offers Its Perilous Aid, And The Power And Empire That Follow It... ''beware Of Me,'' It Says, ''but If You Can Hold Me, I Am The Key To All The Lands.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Sea, Washing The

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

The Sea, Washing The Equator And The Poles, Offers Its Perilous Aid, And The Power And Empire That Follow It... ''beware Of Me,'' It Says, ''but If You Can Hold Me, I Am The Key To All The Lands.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

All Necessary Truth Is Its Own Evidence.

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

Is There A Difference? Yes. We Are In Harmony With Nature, But Never At Peace.

He Is A Good Man, Who Can Receive A Gift Well. We Are Either Glad Or Sorry At A Gift, And Both Emotions Are Unbecoming.

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

There Is Nothing In History To Parallel The Influence Of Jesus Christ.

Thou Art To Me A Delicious Torment.

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

I Am Ready To Die Out Of Nature, And Be Born Again Into This New Yet Unapproachable America I Have Found In The West.

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.

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

Not Gold But Only Men Can Makea People Great And Strong;men Who For Truth And Honors Sakestand Fast And Suffer Long. Brave Men Who Work While Others Sleep,who Dare While Others Flythey Build A Nations Pillars Deepand Lift Them To The Sky.

The Great Man Is Not Convulsible Or Tormentable; Events Pass Over Him Without Much Impression.

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

I Am A Willow Of The Wilderness, Loving The Wind That Bent Me.

But To Most Of Us Society Shows Not Its Face And Eye, But Its Side And Back. To Stand In True Relations With Men In A False Age Isworth A Fit Of Insanity, Is It Not?

He Is A Dull Observer Whose Experience Has Not Taught Him The Reality And Force Of Magic, As Well As Of Chemistry.

Successful Is The Person Who Has Lived Well, Laughed Often And Loved Much, Who Has Gained The Respect Of Children, Who Leaves The World Better Than They Found It, Who Has Never Lacked Appreciation For The Earth's Beauty, Who Never Fails To Look For The Best In Others Or Give The Best Of Themselves.

His Heart Was As Great As The World, But There Was No Room In It To Hold The Memory Of A Wrong.

All Life Is An Experiment. 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. I Wish To Write Such Rhymes As Shall Not Suggest A Restraint, But Contrariwise The Wildest Freedom. Immortality. I Notice That As Soon As Writers Broach This Question They Begin To Quote. I Hate Quotation. Tell Me What You Know.

A Beautiful Soul Always Dwells In A Beautiful World.

Never Self-possessed, Or Prudent, Love Is All Abandonment.

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.

Society Is The Stage On Which Manners Are Shown; Novels Are The Literature. Novels Are The Journal Or Record Of Manners; And The New Importance Of These Books Derives From The Fact, That The Novelist Begins To Penetrate The Surface, And Treat This Part Of Life More Worthily.

Our Life Is Not So Much Threatened As Our Perception. Ghostlike We Glide Through Nature, And Should Not Know Our Place Again.

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.

Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit.

We Want But Two Or Three Friends, But These We Cannot Do Without, And They Serve Us In Every Thought We Think.

Don't Trust Children With Edge Tools. Don't Trust Man, Great God, With More Power Than He Has Until He Has Learned To Use That Little Better. What A Hell We Should Make Of The World If We Could Do What We Would!

If In The Least Particular, One Could Derange The Order Of Nature, Who Would Accept The Gift Of Life?

If You Know You Are Right, Stay The Course Even Though The Whole World Seems To Be Against You And Everyone You Know Questions Your Judgment. When You Prevail--and You Eventually Will If You Stick To The Job--they Will All Tell You That They Knew All Along You Could Do It.

Tell Them Dear, That If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being: Why Thou Wert There, O Rival Of The Rose! I Never Sought To Ask, I Never Knew: But, In My Simple Ignorance Suppose The Selfsame Power That Brought Me There Brought You.

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

What Is Life But The Angle Of Vision? A Man Is Measured By The Angle At Which He Looks At Objects. What Is Life But What A Man Is Thinking Of All Day? This Is His Fate And His Employer. Knowing Is The Measure Of The Man. By How Much We Know, So We Are.

There Is No History; Only Biography.

These Times Of Ours Are Series And Full Of Calamity, But All Times Are Essentially Alike. As Soon As There Is Life There Is Danger.

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

All Minds Quote. Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands. By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote. We Quote Not Only Books And Proverbs, But Arts, Sciences, Religion, Customs, And Laws; Nay, We Quote Temples And Houses, Tables And Chairs, By Imitation.

The Wise Know That Foolish Legislation Is A Rope Of Sand, Which Perishes In The Twisting.

To Wade In Marshes And Sea Margins Is The Destiny Of Certain Bird, And They Are So Accurately Made For This That They Are Imprisoned In Those Places. Each Animal Out Of Its Habitat Would Starve. To The Physician, Each Man, Each Woman, Is An Amplification Of One Organ. A Soldier, A Locksmith, A Bank-clerk, And A Dancer Could Not Exchange Functions. And Thus We Are Victims Of Adaptation.

No Matter How Much Faculty Of Idle Seeing A Man Has, The Step From Knowing To Doing Is Rarely Taken.

I Am Thankful For Small Mercies. I Compared Notes With One Of My Friends Who Expect Everything Of The Universe, And Is Disappointed When Anything Is Less Than The Best, And I Found That I Begin At The Other Extreme, Expecting Nothing, And Am Always Full Of Thanks For Moderate Good. . . . If We Will Take The Good We Find, . . . We Shall Have Heaping Measures. . . .

In Order For One To Learn The Important Lessons Of Life, One Must First Overcome A Fear Each Day.

Real Action Is In Silent Moments.

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

Colleges, In Like Manner, Have Their Indispensable Office,--to Teach Elements. But They Can Only Highly Serve Us, When They Aim Not To Drill, But To Create; When They Gather From Far Every Ray Of Various Genius To Their Hospitable Halls, And, By The Concentrated Fires, Set The Hearts Of Their Youth On Flame.

All High Beauty Has A Moral Element In It.

All Substances The Cunning Chemist Time Melts Down Into That Liquor Of My Life.

All Sensible People Are Selfish, And Nature Is Tugging At Every Contract To Make The Terms Of It Fair.

Earth Laughs In Flowers To See Her Boastful Boys Earth-proud, Proud Of The Earth Which Is Not Theirs; Who Steer The Plough, But Cannot Steer Their Feet Clear Of The Grave.

Culture Implies All Which Gives The Mind Possession Of Its Own Powers, As Languages To The Critic, Telescope To The Astronomer. Culture Alters The Political Status Of An Individual. It Raises A Rival Royalty In A Monarchy. 'tis King Against King. It Is Ever A Romance Of History In All Dynasties--the Co-presence Of The Revolutionary Force In Intellect. It Creates A Personal Independence Which The Monarch Cannot Look Down, And To Which He Must Often Succumb.

It Has Come To Be Practically A Sort Of Rule In Literature That A Man, Having Once Shown Himself Capable Of Original Writing, Is Entitled Thenceforth To Steal From The Writings Of Others At Discretion.

Necessity Does Everything Well.

Conversation Is An Art In Which A Man Has All Mankind For His Competitors, For It Is That Which All Are Practising Every Day While They Live.

The Genius Of Life Is Friendly To The Noble, And, In The Dark, Brings Them Friends From Far.

Commonsense Is The Wick Of The Candle.

The Life Of Man Is A Self-evolving Circle, Which, From A Ring Imperceptibly Small, Rushes On All Sides Outwards To New And Largercircles, And That Without End.

Every Ship Is A Romantic Object, Except That We Sail In.

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.

Out Of Plato Come All Things That Are Still Written And Debated About Among Men Of Thought.

The Greatest Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself.

Nature Is Upheld By Antagonism.

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.

The Young Men Were Born With Knives In Their Brain, A Tendency To Introversion, Self-dissection, Anatomizing Of Motives.

Our Spontaneous Action Is Always The Best. You Cannot, With Your Best Deliberation And Heed, Come So Close To Any Question As Your Spontaneous Glance Shall Bring You.

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

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

We All Need Someone Who Can Help Us Do What We Already Can.

Every Word Was Once A Poem. Every New Relation Is A New Word.

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

Freedom Has Nothing To Do With Having The Right To Vote For Your Oppressor; Freedom Is Not Having Any Form Of Oppression.

Every Individual Nature Has Its Own Beauty. One Is Struck In Every Company, At Every Fireside, With The Riches Of Nature, When He Hears So Many New Tones, All Musical, Sees In Each Person Original Manners, Which Have A Proper And Peculiar Charm, And Reads New Expressions Of Face. He Perceives That Nature Has Laid For Each The Foundations Of A Divine Building, If The Soul Will Build Thereon.

As To Methods, There May Be A Million And Then Some, But Principles Are Few. The Man Who Grasps Principles Can Successfully Select His Own Methods.

But What Help From These Fineries Or Pedantries? What Help From Thought? Life Is Not Dialectics. We, I Think, In These Times, Have Had Lessons Enough Of The Futility Of Criticism.

The Roses Under My Window Make No Reference To Former Roses Or Better Ones; They Are What They Are; They Exist With God Today. There Is No Time To Them. There Is Simply The Rose; It Is Perfect In Every Moment Of Its Existence.

To This Military Attitude Of The Soul We Give The Name Of Heroism... It Is A Self-trust Which Slights The Restraints Of Prudence, In The Plenitude Of Its Energy And Power To Repair The Harms It May Suffer. The Hero Is A Mind Of Such Balance That No Disturbances Can Shake His Will.

It Is Hard To Mesmerize Ourselves, To Whip Our Own Top; But Through Sympathy We Are Capable Of Energy And Endurance. Concert Fires People To A Certain Fury Of Performance They Can Rarely Reach Alone.

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.

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken.

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.

How Painful To Give A Gift To Any Person Of Sensibility, Or Of Equality! It Is Next Worst To Receiving One

Society Is A Wave. The Wave Moves Onward, But The Water Of Which It Is Composed Does Not.

Eyes...they Speak All Languages.

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

Every Mind Must Make Its Choice Between Truth And Repose. It Cannot Have Both.

And I Myself, In Rome, Heard It Said Openly In The Streets, "if There Is A Hell, Then Rome Is Built On It." Martin Luther, Against The Roman Papacy, An Institution Of The Devil London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

O Friend, Never Strike Sail To A Fear!

If I Should Go Out Of Church Whenever I Hear A False Sentiment, I Could Never Stay There Five Minutes.

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.

Always Maintain Your Common Sense And Artful Skills, And Funnel It All Into Plain Enough Dealings.

Wisdom Will Never Let Us Stand With Any Man On An Unfriendly Footing. We Refuse Sympathy And Intimacy With People, As If We Waited For Some Better Sympathy Or Intimacy To Come. But Whence And When: Tomorrow Will Be Like Today. Life Wastes Itself While We Are Preparing To Live.

When God Lets Loose A Great Thinker On This Planet, Then All Things Are At Risk. There Is Not A Piece Of Science But Its Flank May Be Turned To-morrow; Nor Any Literary Reputation Or The So-called Eternal Names Of Fame That Many Not Be Refused And Condemned.

The Finest And Noblest Ground On Which People Can Live Is Truth; The Real With The Real; A Ground On Which Nothing Is Assumed.

I Can Believe A Miracle Because I Can Raise My Own Arm. I Can Believe A Miracle Because I Can Remember. I Can Believe It Because I Can Speak And Be Understood By You.

There Is No Better Way To Exercise The Imagination Than The Study Of The Law.

The New Statement Will Comprise The Skepticisms, As Well As The Faiths Of Society, And Out Of Unbeliefs A Creed Shall Be Formed. For, Skepticisms Are Not Gratuitous Or Lawless, But Are Limitations Of The Affirmative Statement, And The New Philosophy Must Take Them In, And Make Affirmations Outside Of Them, Just As Much As Must Include The Oldest Beliefs.

Tis A Rule Of Manners To Avoid Exaggeration.

There Is One Topic Peremptorily Forbidden To All Well-bred, To All Rational Mortals, Namely, Their Distempers. If You Have Not Slept Or If You Have Slept Or If You Have Head Ache Or Sciatica Or Leprosy Or Thunder-stroke, I Beseech You, By All Angels, To Hold Your Peace And Not Pollute The Morning.

To Be A Man Is To Be A Nonconformist.

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

There Are Two Classes Of Poets - The Poets By Education And Practice, These We Respect; And Poets By Nature, These We Love.

Converse With A Mind That Is Grandly Simple, And Literature Looks Like Word-catching.

Greatness Is A Property For Which No Man Gets Credit Too Soon; It Must Be Possessed Long Before It Is Acknowledged.

I Wish The Days To Be As Centuries, Loaded, Fragrant. Now We Reckon Them As Bank-days, By Some Debt Which Is To Be Paid Us, Or Which We Are To Pay, Or Some Pleasure We Are To Taste.

Luckily For Us, Now That Steam Has Narrowed The Atlantic To A Strait, The Nervous, Rocky West Is Intruding A New And Continental Element Into The National Mind, As We Shall Yet Have An American Genius.

The Inmost In Due Time Becomes The Outmost.

Every Man Is Entitled To Be Valued By His Best Moment.

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.

What King Has He Not Taught State, As Talma Taught Napoleon? What Maiden Has Not Found Him Finer Than Her Delicacy? What Lover Has He Not Outloved? What Sage Has He Not Outseen? What Gentleman Has He Not Instructed In The Rudeness Of His Behavior?

There Is No Strong Performance Without A Little Fanaticism In The Performer.

There Are Many Things Of Which A Wise Man Might Wish To Be Ignorant

Oh, Be My Friend, And Teach Me To Be Thine!

The Noblest Ministry Of Nature Is To Stand As The Apparition Of God.

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.

Self Trust Is The Essence Of Heroism.

Great Men Are Sincere.

When A Man Does Not Write His Poetry, It Escapes By Other Vents Through Him.

This Valley Is The Only Place That Comes Up To The Brag About It, And Exceeds It.

Heaven Always Bears Some Proportion To Earth. The God Of The Cannibal Will Be A Cannibal, Of The Crusades A Crusader, And Of The Merchants A Merchant.

I Would Have The Studies Elective. Scholarship Is To Be Created Not By Compulsion, But By Awakening A Pure Interest In Knowledge. The Wise Instructor Accomplishes This By Opening To His Pupils Precisely The Attractions The Study Has For Himself. The Marking Is A System For Schools, Not For The College; For Boys, Not For Men; And It Is An Ungracious Work To Put On A Professor.

Knowledge Exists To Be Imparted.

Some Men Are Born To Own, And Can Animate All Their Possessions. Others Cannot: Their Owning Is Not Graceful; Seems To Be A Compromise Of Their Character: They Seem To Steal Their Own Dividends.

Whenever The Pulpit Is Usurped By A Formalist, Then Is The Worshipper Defrauded And Disconsolate.

He That Loveth Maketh His Own The Grandeur He Loves

Each Of Us Sees In Others What We Carry In Our Own Hearts.

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

Teach The Children! It Is Painting In Fresco.

A Skilful Man Reads His Dreams For His Selfknowledge; Yet Not The Details, But The Quality.

Who Can . . . Guess How Much Industry And Providence And Affection We Have Caught From The Pantomime Of Brutes?

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

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

Why Should We Assume The Faults Of Our Friend, Or Wife, Or Father, Or Child, Because They Sit Around Our Hearth, Or Are Said To Have The Same Blood?

All Great Men Come Out Of The Middle Classes.

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.

The Highest Proof Of Civility Is That The Whole Public Action Of The State Is Directed On Securing The Greatest Good Of The Greatest Number.

Let Not The Author Eat Up The Man, So That He Shall Be All Balcony And No House.

God Enters By A Private Door Into Every Individual.

I Would Put Myself In The Attitude To Look In The Eye An Abstract Truth, And I Cannot. I Blench And Withdraw On This Side And On That. I Seem To Know What He Meant Who Said, No Man Can See God Face To Face And Live.

Few And Mean As My Gifts May Be, I Actually Am, And Do Not Need For My Own Assurance Or The Assurance Of My Fellows Any Secondary Testimony.

No Law Can Be Sacred To Me But That Of My Nature.

We Are Wiser Than We Know.

Let It Suffice That In The Light Of These Two Facts, Namely, That The Mind Is One, And That Nature Is Its Correlative, History Isto Be Read And Written.

All Men Plume Themselves On The Improvement Of Society, And No Man Improves.

The Two Terrors That Discourage Creativity And Creative Living Are Fear Of Public Opinion And Undue Reverence For One's Own Consistency.

The First And Last Lesson Of Religion Is, "the Things That Are Seen, Are Temporal; The Things That Are Unseen, Are Eternal." It Puts An Affront Upon Nature.

All Men Are Poets At Heart.

The Poet Alone Knows Astronomy, Chemistry, Vegetation, And Animation, For He Does Not Stop At These Facts, But Employs Them As Signs. He Knows Why The Plain, Or Meadow Of Space, Was Strown With These Flowers We Call Suns, And Moons, And Stars; Why The Deep Is Adorned With Animals, With Men, And Gods; For, In Every Word He Speaks He Rides On Them As The Horses Of Thought.

Every Promise Of The Soul Has Innumerable Fulfillments; Each Of Its Joys Ripens Into A New Want.

All Men Are In Some Degree Impressed By The Face Of The World; Some Men Even To Delight. This Love Of Beauty Is Taste. Others Have The Same Love In Such Success That, Not Content With Admiring, They Seek To Embody It In New Forms. The Creation Of Beauty Is Art.

The Senses Interfere Everywhere, And Mix Their Own Structure With All They Report Of.

When It Comes To Divide An Estate, The Politest Men Quarrel.

Freedom Is Not The Right To Live As We Please, But The Right To Find How We Ought To Live In Order To Fulfill Our Potential.

Friends Are Like Spaghetti, They Should Stick Together. The Only Way To Have A Friend Is To Be One.

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.

There Are Books... Which Rank In Our Life With Parents And Lovers And Passionate Experiences.

In England Every Man You Meet Is Some Man's Son; In America, He May Be Some Man's Father.

The Best Effort Of A Fine Person Is Felt After We Have Left Their Presence.

Good Judgment Comes From Experience, And A Lot Of That Comes From Bad Judgment. The One Thing In The World, Of Value, Is The Active Soul.

Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet. Then All Things Are At Risk. It Is As When A Conflagration Has Broken Out In A Great City, And No Man Knows What Is Safe, Or Where It Will End.

For, Though The Origin Of Most Of Our Words Is Forgotten, Each Word Was At First A Stroke Of Genius, And Obtained Currency, Because For The Moment It Symbolized The World To The First Speaker And To The Hearer. The Etymologist Finds The Deadest Word To Have Been Once A Brilliant Picture.

I Think It Is The Best Of Humanity That Goes Out To Walk. In Happy Hours, I Think All Affairs May Be Wisely Postponed For Walking.

What You Persist In Doing Gets Easier. The Task Hasn't Changed, But Your Ability To Do It Has Increased.

Eating Disorder

You Need Someone Who Can Inspire You To Be What You Know You Can Be

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

There Are Men Whose Language Is Strong And Defying Enough, Yet Their Eyes And Their Actions Ask Leave Of Other Men To Live.

Great Believers Are Always Reckoned Infidels, Impracticable, Fantastic, Atheistic, And Really Men Of No Account. The Spiritualist Finds Himself Driven To Express His Faith By A Series Of Skepticisms.

For, When Men Shall Meet As They Ought, Each A Benefactor, A Shower Of Stars, Clothed With Thoughts, With Deeds, With Accomplishments, It Should Be The Festival Of Nature Which All Things Announce. Of Such Friendship, Love In The Sexes Is The First Symbol, As All Other Things Are Symbols Of Love. Those Relations To The Best Men, Which, At One Time, We Reckoned The Romances Of Youth, Become, In The Progress Of Character, The Most Solid Enjoyment.

The Soul Comes From Without Into The Human Body, As Into A Temporary Abode, And It Goes Out Of It Anew It Passes Into Other Habitations, For The Soul Is Immortal." "it Is The Secret Of The World That All Things Subsist And Do Not Die, But Only Retire A Little From Sight And Afterwards Return Again. Nothing Is Dead; Men Feign Themselves Dead, And Endure Mock Funerals... And There They Stand Looking Out Of The Window, Sound And Well, In Some Strange New Disguise.

He Is A Good Man Who Can Receive A Gift Well.

Men Of Extraordinary Success, In Their Honest Moments, Have Always Sung, "not Unto Us, Not Unto Us." According To The Faith Of Their Times, They Have Built Altars To Fortune, Or To Destiny, Or To St. Julian. Their Success Lay In Their Parallelism To The Course Of Thought, Which Found In Them An Unobstructed Channel; And The Wonders Of Which They Were The Visible Conductors Seemed To Their Eye Their Deed.

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

Rude Poets Of The Tavern Hearth, Squandering Your Unquoted Mirth, Which Keeps The Ground, And Never Soars, While Jake Retorts, And Reuben Roars; Tough And Screaming, As Birch-bark, Goes Like Bullet To Its Mark; While The Solid Curse And Jeer Never Balk The Waiting Ear.

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

A Self-denial, No Less Austere Than The Saint's, Is Demanded Of The Scholar. He Must Worship Truth, And Forgo All Things For That,and Choose Defeat And Pain, So That His Treasure In Thought Is Thereby Augmented.

Knowledge Is The Antidote To Fear

Excellence Is The New Forever.

The Mind, Once Stretched By A New Idea, Never Returns To Its Original Dimensions.

Body Cannot Teach Wisdom; God Only.

We Are Like Travellers Using The Cinders Of A Volcano To Roast Their Eggs. Whilst We See That It Always Stands Ready To Clothe What We Would Say, We Cannot Avoid The Question Whether The Characters Are Not Significant Of Themselves.

The Love Of Novels Is The Preference Of Sentiment To The Senses.

The Permanence Of All Books Is Fixed By No Effort Friendly Or Hostile, But By Their Own Specific Gravity, Or The Intrinsic Importance Of Their Contents To The Constant Mind Of Man.

Debt, Grinding Debt, Whose Iron Face The Widow, The Orphan, And The Sons Of Genius Fear And Hate; Debt, Which Consumes So Much Time, Which So Cripples And Disheartens A Great Spirit With Cares That Seem So Base, Is A Preceptor Whose Lessons Cannot Be Foregone, And Is Needed Most By Those Who Suffer From It Most.

Build, Therefore, Your Own World. As Fast As You Conform Your Life To The Pure Idea In Your Mind, That Will Unfold It's Great Proportions.

But The Wise Know That Foolish Legislation Is A Rope Of Sand, Which Perishes In The Twisting; That The State Must Follow, And Notlead The Character And Progress Of The Citizen; The Strongest Usurper Is Quickly Got Rid Of; And They Only Who Build On Ideas, Build For Eternity; And That The Form Of Government Which Prevails, Is The Expression Of What Cultivation Exists In The Population Which Permits It.

The Things We Now Esteem Fixed Shall, One By One, Detach Themselves, Like Ripe Fruit, From Our Experience, And Fall. The Wind Shall Blow Them None Knows Whither.

Nature Avenges Herself Speedily On The Hard Pedantry That Would Chain Her Waves. She Is No Literalist. Every Thing Must Be Taken Genially, And We Must Be At The Top Of Our Condition, To Understand Any Thing Rightly.

Practice Makes Perfect - The Sooner You Start, The Sooner You Will Be A Happy Nonsmoker

The Good Writer Seems To Be Writing About Himself, But Has His Eye Always On That Thread Of The Universe Which Runs Through Himself And All Things.

A Man Builds A Fine House; And Now He Has A Master, And A Task For Life.

The Present Is An Edifice Which God Cannot Rebuild.

The Sum Of Wisdom Is That Time Is Never Lost That Is Devoted To Work.

When It's Darkest, Men See The Stars.

The Best Nations Are Those Most Widely Related; And Navigation, As Effecting A World-wide Mixture, Is The Most Potent Advancer Ofnations.

Explore, And Explore, And Explore. Be Neither Chided Nor Flattered Out Of Your Position Of Perpetual Inquiry. Neither Dogmatise Yourself, Nor Accept Another's Dogmatism. Why Should You Renounce Your Right To Traverse The Star-lit Deserts Of Truth, For The Premature Comforts Of An Acre, House, And Barn? Truth Also Has Its Roof, And Bed, And Board. Make Yourself Necessary To The World, And Mankind Will Give You Bread, And If Not Store Of It, Yet Such As Shall Not Take Away Your Property In All Men's Possessions, In All Men's Affections, In Art, In Nature, And In Hope.

You Cannot Give Anything To A Magnanimous Person. After You Have Served Him, He At Once Puts You In Debt By His Magnanimity.

Everything In Creation Has Its Appointed Painter Or Poet And Remains In Bondage Like The Princess In The Fairy Tale 'til Its Appropriate Liberator Comes To Set It Free.

The Highest End Of Government Is The Culture Of Men.

Skepticism Is Slow Suicide.

One Of The Most Wonderful Things In Nature Is A Glance Of The Eye; It Transcends Speech; It Is The Bodily Symbol Of Identity.

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Anna Letitia Barbauld

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