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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Secret Of Poetry

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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Every Spirit Builds Itself A House; And Beyond Its House A World; And Beyond Its World, A Heaven. Know Then, That The World Exists For You. For You Is The Phenomenon Perfect. What We Are, That Only Can We See. All That Adam Had, All That Caesar Could, You Have And Can Do. Adam Called His House, Heaven And Earth; Caesar Called His House, Rome; You Perhaps Call Yours, A Cobler's Trade; A Hundred Acres Of Ploughed Land; Or A Scholar's Garret. Yet Line For Line And Point For Point, Your Dominion Is As Great As Theirs, Though Without Fine Names. Build, Therefore, Your Own World.

As Long As A Man Stands In His Own Way, Everything Seems To Be In His Way.

I Please Myself With The Graces Of The Winter Scenery, And Believe That We Are As Much Touched By It As By The Genial Influences Of Summer.

A Man's Wife Has More Power Over Him Than The State Has.

The Intellect Searches Out The Absolute Order Of Things As They Stand In The Mind Of God, And Without The Colors Of Affection. The Intellectual And The Active Powers Seem To Succeed Each Other, And The Exclusive Activity Of The One Generates The Exclusive Activity Of The Other. There Is Something Unfriendly In Each To The Other, But They Are Like The Alternate Periods Of Feeding And Working In Animals; Each Prepares And Will Be Followed By The Other.

Our Relations To Each Other Are Oblique And Casual.

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

The Mind Will Quote Whether The Tongue Does Or Not.

When The Gods Come Among Men, They Are Not Known.

Doubt Not, O Poet, But Persist. Say 'it Is In Me, And Shall Out.' Stand There, Balked And Dumb, Stuttering And Stammering, Hissed And Hooted, Stand And Strive, Until At Last Rage Draw Out Of Thee That Dream-power Which Every Night Shows Thee Is Thine Own; A Power Transcending All Limit And Privacy, And By Virtue Of Which A Man Is The Conductor Of The Whole River Of Electricity.

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

The Jews Believed Jerusalem To Be The Centre. I Have Seen A Kratometric Chart Designed To Show That The City Of Philadelphia Was In The Same Thermic Belt, And, By Inference, In The Same Belt Of Empire, As The Cities Of Athens, Rome, And London. It Was Drawn By A Patriotic Philadelphian, And Was Examined With Pleasure, Under His Showing, By The Inhabitants Of Chestnut Street. But, When Carried To Charleston, To New Orleans, And To Boston, It Somehow Failed To Convince The Ingenious Scholars Of All Those Capitals.

A Mind Does Not Receive Truth As A Chest Receives Jewels That Are Put Into It, But As The Stomach Takes Up Food Into The System. It Is No Longer Food, But Flesh, And Is Assimilated. The Appetite And The Power Of Digestion Measure Our Right To Knowledge. He Has It Who Can Use It. As Soon As Our Accumulation Overruns Our Invention Or Power To Use, The Evils Of Intellectual Gluttony Begin,— Congestion Of The Brain, Apoplexy And Strangulation.

The Health Of The Eye Demands A Horizon.

Nature Is No Sentimentalist, - Does Not Cosset Or Pamper Us. We Must See That The World Is Rough And Surly, And Will Not Mind Drowning A Man Or A Woman; But Swallows Your Ship Like A Grain Of Dust. The Cold, Inconsiderate Of Persons, Tingles Your Blood, Benumbs Your Feet, Freezes A Man Like An Apple. The Diseases, The Elements, Fortune, Gravity, Lightning, Respect No Persons.

The Religions Are Obsolete When The Reforms Do Not Proceed From Them.

Intellect Is A Fire; Rash And Pitiless It Melts This Wonderful Bone-house Which Is Called Man. Genius Even, As It Is The Greatestgood, Is The Greatest Harm.

A Few Years Ago, The Liberal Churches Complained That The Calvinistic Church Denied To Them The Name Of Christian. I Think The Complaint Was Confession; A Religious Church Would Not Complain.

Cause And Effect, Means And Ends, Seed And Fruit Cannot Be Severed; For The Effect Already Blooms In The Cause, The End Preexists In The Means, The Fruit In The Seed

Tis The Good Reader That Makes The Good Book.

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.

There Is No Man Of Nature's Worth In The Circle Of The Earth.

Earth's A Howling Wilderness, Truculent With Fraud And Force.

There Is No King Or Sovereign State That Can Fix A Hero's Rate; Each To All Is Venerable.

Plants Are The Young Of The World, Vessels Of Health And Vigor; But They Grope Ever Upward Towards Consciousness; The Trees Are Imperfect Men, And Seem To Bemoan Their Imprisonment, Rooted In The Ground.

We See The World Piece By Piece, As The Sun, The Moon, The Animal, The Tree; But The Whole, Of Which These Are Shining Parts, Is The Soul.

All Science Is Transcendental Or Else Passes Away.

Your Work Should Be In Praise Of What You Love.

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

Can Rules Or Tutors Educate The Semigod Whom We Await? He Must Be Musical, Tremulous, Impressional, Alive To Gentle Influence Of Landscape And Of Sky And Tender To The Spirit-touch Of Man's Or Maiden's Eye.

The Terrors Of The Child Are Quite Reasonable, And Add To His Loveliness; For His Utter Ignorance And Weakness, And His Enchanting Indignation On Such A Small Basis Of Capital Compel Every Bystander To Take His Part.

A Friend, Therefore, Is A Sort Of Paradox In Nature. I Who Alone Am, I Who See Nothing In Nature Whose Existence I Can Affirm With Equal Evidence To My Own, Behold Now The Semblance Of My Being, In All Its Height, Variety, And Curiosity, Reiterated In A Foreign Form; So That A Friend May Well Be Reckoned The Masterpiece Of Nature.

The World Makes Way For The Man Who Knows Where He Is Going

In Our Large Cities, The Population Is Godless, Materialized,--no Bond, No Fellow-feeling, No Enthusiasm. These Are Not Men, But Hungers, Thirsts, Fevers, And Appetites Walking. How Is It People Manage To Live On,--so Aimless As They Are? After Their Peppercorn Aims Are Gained, It Seems As If The Lime In Their Bones Alone Held Them Together, And Not Any Worthy Purpose.

If You Maintain A Dead Church, Contribute To A Dead Bible-society, Vote With A Great Party Either For The Government Or Against It, Spread Your Table Like Base Housekeepers, - Under All These Screens I Have Diffuculty To Detect The Precise Man You Are: And Of Course So Much Force Is Withdrawn From Your Proper Life. But Do Your Work And I Shall Know You. Do Your Work, And You Shall Reinforce Yourself. A Man Must Consider What A Blind-man's Bluff Is This Game Of Conformity. If I Know Your Sect I Anticipate Your Argument.

Strange Is This Alien Despotism Of Sleep Which Takes Two Persons Lying In Each Other's Arms & Separates Them Leagues, Continents,asunder.

Men Cease To Interest Us When We Find Their Limitations. The Only Sin Is Limitation. As Soon As You Once Come Up With A Man's Limitations, It Is All Over With Him.

Men Succeed When They Realize That Their Failures Are The Preparation For Their Victories.

Men Do Not Believe In The Power Of Education. We Do Not Think We Can Speak To Divine Sentiments In Man, And We Do Not Try. We Renounce All High Aims.

The Stars Awaken A Certain Reverence, Because Though Always Present, They Are Inaccessible.

I Am Constrained Every Moment To Acknowledge A Higher Origin For Events Than The Will I Call Mine.

In My Utter Impotence To Test The Authenticity Of The Report Of My Senses, To Know Whether The Impressions They Make On Me Correspond With Outlying Objects, What Difference Does It Make, Whether Orion Is Up There In Heaven, Or Some God Paints The Image In The Firmament Of The Soul?

There Is No Great And No Small To The Soul That Maketh All.

Adopt The Pace Of Nature: Her Secret Is Patience.

Genius Is The Naturalist Or Geographer Of The Supersensible Regions, And Draws Their Map; And, By Acquainting Us With New Fields Of Activity, Cools Our Affection For The Old. These Are At Once Accepted As The Reality, Of Which The World We Have Conversed With Is The Show.

You Must Let Go Of A Thing For A New One To Come To You.

Each Mind Has Its Own Method. A True Man Never Acquires After College Rules.

We Are The Prisoners Of Ideas. They Catch Us Up For Moments Into Their Heaven, And So Fully Engage Us, That We Take No Thought Forthe Morrow, Gaze Like Children, Without An Effort To Make Them Our Own.

The Best Of Life Is Conversation, And The Greatest Success Is Confidence, Or Perfect Understanding Between Sincere People.

Nature Ever Faithful Is To Such As Trust Her Faithfulness.

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.

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

The Cheapness Of Man Is Every Day's Tragedy. It Is As Real A Loss That Others Should Be Low, As That We Should Be Low; For We Musthave A Society.

The World Leaves No Track In Space, And The Greatest Action Of Man No Mark In The Vast Idea.

If The Gatherer Gathers Too-much, Nature Takes Out Of The Man What She Puts Into His Chest; Swells The Estate, But Kills The Owner. Nature Hates, Monopolies And Exceptions.

The First In Time And The First In Importance Of The Influences Upon The Mind Is That Of Nature. Every Day, The Sun; And After Sunset, Night And Her Stars. Ever The Winds Blow; Ever The Grass Grows.

The Wheels And Springs Of Man Are All Set To The Hypothesis Of The Permanence Of Nature. We Are Not Built Like A Ship To Be Tossed, But Like A House To Stand.

And So The Reliance On Property, Including The Reliance On Governments Which Protect It, Is The Want Of Self-reliance.

Language Is A City To The Building Of Which Every Human Being Brought A Stone.

Language And Power

Good Nature Is Stronger Than Tomahawks.

I Can Find My Biography In Every Fable That I Read.

The Way To Learn German, Is, To Read The Same Dozen Pages Over And Over A Hundred Times, Till You Know Every Word And Particle In Them, And Can Pronounce And Repeat Them By Heart.

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

A Man Cannot Free Himself By Any Self-denying Ordinances, Neither By Water Nor Potatoes, Nor By Violent Possibilities, By Refusing To Swear, Refusing To Pay Taxes, By Going To Jail, Or By Taking Another Man's Crops Or Squatting On His Land. By None Of These Ways Can He Free Himself; No, Nor By Paying His Debts With Money; Only By Obedience To His Own Genius.

God Evidently Does Not Intend Us All To Be Rich, Or Powerful Or Great, But He Does Intend Us All To Be Friends.

The Tempered Light Of The Woods Is Like A Perpetual Morning.

We Fetch Fire And Water, Run About All Day Among The Shops And Markets, And Get Our Clothes And Shoes Made And Mended, And Are Thevictims Of These Details, And Once In A Fortnight We Arrive Perhaps At A Rational Moment.

Music Takes Us Out Of The Actual And Whispers To Us Dim Secrets That Startles Out Wonder As To Who We Are, And For What, Whence, And Whereto.

Sleep Takes Off The Costume Of Circumstance, Arms Us With Terrible Freedom, So That Every Will Rushes To A Deed.

The World Is Emblematic. Parts Of Speech Are Metaphors, Because The Whole Of Nature Is A Metaphor Of The Human Mind.

In Our Fine Arts, Not Imitation, But Creation Is The Aim... The Details, The Prose Of Nature, He Should Omit, And Give Us Only The Spirit And Splendour.

It Is Curious That Christianity, Which Is Idealism, Is Sturdily Defended By The Brokers, And Steadily Attacked By The Idealists.

We Expect A Great Man To Be A Good Reader.

The Land Is The Appointed Remedy For Whatever Is False And Fantastic In Our Culture...food For Our Mind, As Well As Our Body.

Our Condition As Men Is Risky And Ticklish Enough. One Can Not Be Sure Of Himself And His Fortune An Hour, But He May Be Whisked Off Into Some Pitiable Or Ridiculous Plight.

It Requires A Great Deal Of Boldness And A Great Deal Of Caution To Make A Great Fortune, And When You Have It, It Requires Ten Times As Much Skill To Keep It.

The Most Tedious Of All Discourses Are On The Subject Of The Supreme Being.

Our Poets Are Men Of Talents Who Sing, And Not The Children Of Music.

To Finish The Moment, To Find The Journey's End In Every Step Of The Road, To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours, Is Wisdom. It Is Not The Part Of Men, But Of Fanatics, Or Of Mathematicians, If You Will, To Say, That, The Shortness Of Life Considered, It Is Not Worth Caring Whether For So Short A Duration We Were Sprawling In Want, Or Sitting High. Since Our Office Is With Moments, Let Us Husband Them.

The Office Of The Scholar Is To Cheer, To Raise, And To Guide Men By Showing Them Facts Amidst Appearances.

Since Everything In Nature Answers To A Moral Power, If Any Phenomenon Remains Brute And Dark, It Is That The Corresponding Faculty In The Observer Is Not Yet Active.

There Is Always Room For A Person Of Force And They Make Room For Many.

There Is No Country In Which So Absolute A Homage Is Paid To Wealth. In America There Is A Touch Of Shame When A Man Exhibits Theevidences Of Large Property, As If After All It Needed Apology. But The Englishman Has Pure Pride In His Wealth, And Esteems It A Final Certificate. A Coarse Logic Rules Throughout All English Souls: If You Have Merit, Can You Not Show It By Your Good Clothes And Coach And Horses?

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.

To Educate The Wise Man, The State Exists; And With The Appearance Of The Wise Man, The State Expires. The Appearance Of Charactermakes The State Unnecessary. The Wise Man Is The State.

If We Live Truly, We Shall See Truly.

If Thought Makes Free, So Does The Moral Sentiment. The Mixtures Of Spiritual Chemistry Refuse To Be Analyzed.

What Art Can Paint Or Gild Any Object In After Life With The Glow Which Nature Gives To The First Baubles Of Childhood? St. Peter's Cannot Have The Magical Power Over Us That The Red And Gold Covers Of Our First Picture-book Possessed.

Religion Is To Do Right. It Is To Love, It Is To Serve, It Is To Think, It Is To Be Humble.

We Are The Prisoners Of Ideas.

What Terrible Questions We Are Learning To Ask! The Former Men Believed In Magic, By Which Temples, Cities, And Men Were Swallowed Up, And All Trace Of Them Gone. We Are Coming On The Secret Of A Magic Which Sweeps Out Of Men's Minds All Vestige Of Theism And Beliefs Which They And Their Fathers Held And Were Framed Upon.

Man Is Timid And Apologetic; He Is No Longer Upright; He Dares Not Say "i Think," "i Am," But Quotes Some Saint Or Sage.

The Masters Painted For Joy, And Knew Not That Virtue Had Gone Out Of Them. They Could Not Paint The Like In Cold Blood. The Masters Of English Lyric Wrote Their Songs So. It Was A Fine Efflorescence Of Fine Powers.

To Believe Your Own Thought, To Believe That What Is True For You In Your Private Heart Is True For All Men That Is Genius.

Free Should Be The Scholar - Free And Brave.

One Definition Of Man Is An Intelligence Served By Organs.

I Fear The Popular Notion Of Success Stands In Direct Opposition In All Points To The Real And Wholesome Success. One Adores Public Opinion, The Other, Private Opinion; One, Fame, The Other, Desert; One, Feats, The Other, Humility; One, Lucre, The Other, Love; One, Monopoly, And The Other, Hospitality Of Mind.

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

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

It Is The Property Of The Religious Spirit To Be The Most Refining Of All Influences. No External Advantages, No Culture Of The Tastes, No Habit Of Command, No Association With The Elegant, Or Even Depth Of Affection, Can Bestow That Delicacy And That Grandeur Of Bearing Which Belong Only To The Mind Accustomed To Celestial Conversation,--all Else Is But Gilt And Cosmetics, Beside This, As Expressed In Every Look And Gesture.

I Am Grown By Sympathy A Little Eager And Sentimental, But Leave Me Alone, And I Should Relish Every Hour And What It Brought Me, The Pot-luck Of The Day, As Heartily As The Oldest Gossip In The Bar-room.

Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm.

All Things Are Moral. That Soul, Which Within Us Is A Sentiment, Outside Of Us Is A Law. We Feel Its Inspiration; Out There In History We Can See Its Fatal Strength.

Wherever A Man Commits A Crime, God Finds A Witness. Every Secret Crime Has Its Reporter.

Today Is A King In Disguise.

Eyes...they Speak All Languages.

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

Our High Respect For A Well-read Man Is Praise Enough For Literature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Unsaid Part Is The Best Of Every Discourse.

Is It Not Manifest That Our Academic Institutions Should Have A Wider Scope; That They Should Not Be Timid And Keep The Ruts Of The Last Generation, But That Wise Men Thinking For Themselves And Heartily Seeking The Good Of Mankind, And Counting The Cost Of Innovation, Should Dare To Arouse The Young To A Just And Heroic Life; That The Moral Nature Should Be Addressed In The School-room, And Children Should Be Treated As The High-born Candidates Of Truth And Virtue?

A Poem, A Sentence, Causes Us To See Ourselves. I Be, And I See My Being, At The Same Time.

I Do Not Count The Hours I Spend In Wandering By The Sea; The Forest Is My Loyal Friend, Like God It Useth Me.

The Primary Wisdom Is Intuition.

It The Proof Of High Culture To Say The Greatest Matters In The Simplest Way.

Standing On The Bare Ground,--my Head Bathed By The Blithe Air And Uplifted Into Infinite Space,--all Mean Egotism Vanishes. I Become A Transparent Eyeball; I Am Nothing; I See All; The Currents Of The Universal Being Circulate Through Me; I Am Part Or Parcel Of God.

All Things Are Moral; And In Their Boundless Changes Have An Unceasing Reference To Spiritual Nature.

I Count Him A Great Man Who Inhabits A Higher Sphere Of Thought, Into Which Other Men Rise With Labor And Difficulty; He Has But To Open His Eyes To See Things In A True Light, And In Large Relations; Whilst They Must Make Painful Corrections, And Keep A Vigilant Eye On Many Sources Of Error.

The World Is His Who Can See Through Its Pretension.

American Scholar

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.

There Are Two Laws Discretenot Reconciled,law For Man, And Law For Thing.

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

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.

Every Man Has A Vocation. The Talent Is The Call.

Let Us Be Poised, Wise And Our Own Today.

In The Morning A Man Walks With His Whole Body; In The Evening, Only With His Legs. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals And Miscellaneous Notebooks Greek Architecture Is The Perfect Flowering Of Geometry.

An Empire Is An Immense Egotism.

The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance. Necessity Is The Law Of All Who Are Not Self-possessed.

Heaven Sometimes Hedges A Rare Character About With Ungainliness And Odium, As The Burr That Protects The Fruit.

In Different Hours, A Man Represents Each Of Several Of His Ancestors, As If There Were Seven Or Eight Of Us Rolled Up In Each Man's Skin, - Seven Or Eight Ancestors At Least, And They Constitute The Variety Of Notes For That New Piece Of Music Which His Life Is.

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.

Nature Is Too Thin A Screen; The Glory Of The Omnipresent God Bursts Through Everywhere

Truth Is The Summit Of Being; Justice Is The Application Of It To Affairs.

No Man Has A Right Perception Of Any Truth, Who Has Not Been Reacted On By It, So As To Be Ready To Be Its Martyr.

The Affirmative Class Monopolize The Homage Of Mankind. They Originate And Execute All The Great Feats. What A Force Was Coiled Upin The Skull Of Napoleon!

Test Of The Poet Is Knowledge Of Love, For Eros Is Older Than Saturn Or Jove; Never Was Poet, Of Late Or Of Yore, Who Was Not Tremulous With Love-lore.

There Is In Nature A Parallel Unity Which Corresponds To The Unity In The Mind And Makes It Available. This Methodizing Mind Meets No Resistance In Its Attempts. The Scattered Blocks, With Which It Strives To Form A Symmetrical Structure, Fit. This Design Following After Finds With Joy That Like Design Went Before. Not Only Man Puts Things In A Row, But Things Belong In A Row.

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

Go Into One Of Our Cool Churches, And Begin To Count The Words That Might Be Spared, And In Most Places The Entire Sermon Will Go.

True Wit Never Made Us Laugh.

The Best Conversation Is Rare. Society Seems To Have Agreed To Treat Fictions As Realities, And Realities As Fictions; And The Simple Lover Of Truth, Especially If On Very High Grounds, As A Religious Or Intellectual Seeker, Finds Himself A Stranger And Alien.

Every Experiment, By Multitudes Or By Individuals, That Has A Sensual And Selfish Aim, Will Fail.

The Corruption Of Man Is Followed By The Corruption Of Language. ... In Due Time, The Fraud Is Manifest, And Words Lose All Power To Stimulate The Understanding Or The Affections.

Be Not The Slave Of Your Own Past - Plunge Into The Sublime Seas, Dive Deep, And Swim Far.

Let Us Take Our Bloated Nothingness Out Of The Path Of The Divine Circuits.

For, The Sense Of Being Which In Calm Hours Rises, We Know Not How, In The Soul, Is Not Diverse From Things, From Space, From Light, From Time, From Man, But One With Them, And Proceeds Obviously From The Same Source Whence Their Life And Being Also Proceed. We First Share The Life By Which Things Exist, And Afterwards See Them As Appearances In Nature, And Forget That We Have Shared Their Cause. Here Is The Fountain Of Action And Of Thought.

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

America Means Opportunity, Freedom, Power.

Every Day, A Little Sadder, A Little Madder. Will Someone Get Me A Ladder?

I Will Not Live Out Of Me I Will Not See With Others' Eyes My Good Is Good, My Evil Ill I Would Be Free.

Everything In Nature Contains All The Powers Of Nature. Everything Is Made Of One Hidden Stuff.

What I Need Is Someone Who Will Make Me Do What I Can.

For Every Benefit You Receive A Tax Is Levied.

The Man In The Street Does Not Know A Star In The Sky.

We Learn Geology The Morning After The Earthquake.

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

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.

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

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

Happy Will That House Be In Which The Relations Are Formed From Character; After The Highest, And Not After The Lowest Order; The House In Which Character Marries, And Not Confusion And A Miscellany Of Unavowable Motives.

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

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

Beside All The Small Reasons We Assign, There Is A Great Reason For The Existence Of Every Extant Fact; A Reason Which Lies Grandand Immovable, Often Unsuspected Behind It In Silence.

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.

In The Death Of My Son, Now More Than Two Years Ago, I Seem To Have Lost A Beautiful Estate,--no More. I Cannot Get It Nearer To Me.

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

Enthusiasm Is One Of The Most Powerful Engines Of Success. When You Do A Thing, Do It With All Your Might.

Enthusiasm For Life

Do Not Craze Yourself With Thinking, But Go About Your Business Anywhere.

A Man In The View Of Absolute Goodness, Adores, With Total Humility. Every Step Downward, Is A Step Upward. The Man Who Renounceshimself, Comes To Himself.

When A Man Meets His Make, Society Begins.

Cupid Is A Casuist, A Mystic, And A Cabalist,-- Can Your Lurking Thought Surprise, And Interpret Your Device, . . . . All Things Wait For And Divine Him,-- How Shall I Dare To Malign Him?

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

The Eyes Indicate The Antiquity Of The Soul.

That Which We Call Character Is A Reserved Force Which Acts Directly By Presence, And Without Means. It Is Conceived Of As A Certain Undemonstrable Force, A Familiar Or Genius, By Whose Impulses The Man Is Guided, But Whose Counsels He Cannot Impart.

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

The Men Who Come On The Stage At One Period Are All Found To Be Related To Each Other. Certain Ideas Are In The Air.

We Do Not Make A World Of Our Own, But Fall Into Institutions Already Made, And Have To Accommodate Ourselves To Them To Be Useful At All.

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

Besides, Our Action On Each Other, Good As Well As Evil, Is So Incidental And At Random, That We Can Seldom Hear The Acknowledgments Of Any Person Who Would Thank Us For A Benefit, Without Some Shame And Humiliation. We Can Rarely Strike A Direct Stroke, But Must Be Content With An Oblique One; We Seldom Have The Satisfaction Of Yielding A Direct Benefit, Which Is Directly Received.

In Old Persons, When Thus Fully Expressed, We Often Observe A Fair, Plump, Perennial Waxen Complexion, Which Indicates That All The Ferment Of Earlier Days Has Subsided Into Serenity Of Thought And Behavior.

The Motive Of Science Was The Extension Of Man, On All Sides, Into Nature, Till His Hands Should Touch The Stars, His Eyes See Through The Earth, His Ears Understand The Language Of Beast And Bird, And The Sense Of The Wind; And, Through His Sympathy, Heaven And Earth Should Talk With Him. But That Is Not Our Science.

The Superstition Respecting Power And Office Is Going To The Ground. The Stream Of Human Affairs Flows Its Own Way, And Is Very Little Affected By The Activity Of Legislators. What Great Masses Of Men Wish Done, Will Be Done; And They Do Not Wish It For A Freak, But Because It Is Their State And Natural End.

This Very Certain That Each Man Carries In His Eye The Exact Indication Of His Rank In The Immense Scale Of Men, And We Are Always Learning To Read It. A Complete Man Should Need No Auxiliaries To His Personal Presence.

Calmness Is Always Godlike.

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

Nature May Be As Selfishly Studied As Trade. Astronomy To The Selfish Becomes Astrology; Psychology, Mesmerism (with Intent To Show Where Aour Spoons Are Gone); And Anatomy And Physiology Become Phrenology And Palmistry.

To Say Then, The Majority Are Wicked, Means No Malice, No Bad Heart In The Observer, But, Simply That The Majority Are Unripe, Andhave Not Yet Come To Themselves, Do Not Yet Know Their Opinion.

A Beautiful Person Among The Greeks, Was Thought To Betray By This Sign Some Secret Favor Of The Immortal Gods; And We Can Pardonpride, When A Woman Possesses Such A Figure That Wherever She Stands, Or Moves, Or Leaves A Shadow On The Wall, Or Sits For A Portrait To The Artist, She Confers A Favor On The World.

The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity.

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.

The Effect Of The Indulgence Of Human Affection Is A Certain Cordial Exhilaration.

If The Individuals Who Compose The Purest Circles Of Aristocracy In Europe, The Guarded Blood Of Centuries, Should Pass In Review,in Such Manner As That We Could, At Leisure, And Critically Inspect Their Behavior, We Might Find No Gentleman, And No Lady; For, Although Excellent Specimens Of Courtesy And High-breeding Would Gratify Us In The Assemblage, In The Particulars, We Should Detect Offence. Because, Elegance Comes Of No Breeding, But Of Birth.

A Song Is No Song Unless The Circumstance Is Free And Fine. If A Singer Sing From A Sense Of Duty Or From Seeing No Way To Escape,i Had Rather Have None. Those Only Can Sleep Who Do Not Care To Sleep; And Those Only Write Or Speak Best Who Do Not Too Much Respect The Writing Or The Speaking.

God Will Not Make Himself Manifest To Cowards

Fear Is A Great Instructor.

Do Not Spill Thy Soul In Running Hither And Yon, Grieving Over The Mistakes And The Vices Of Others. The One Person Whom It Is Most Necessary To Reform Is Yourself.

It Takes A Good Deal Of Character To Judge A Person By His Future Instead Of His Past

I Think We Must Get Rid Of Slavery Or We Must Get Rid Of Freedom.

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

Whenever A Mind Is Simple And Receives An Old Wisdom, Old Things Pass Away,--means, Teachers, Texts, Temples Fall; It Lives Now, And Absorbs Past And Future Into Present Hour. All Things Are Made Sacred By Relation To It,--one As Much As Another.

No Man Has Ever Had A Point Of Pride That Was Not Injurious To Him.

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