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The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively; To Esteem His Own Life The Text, And Books The Commentary. Thus Compelled, The Muse Of History Will Utter Oracles As Never To Those Who Do Not Respect Themselves.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Student Is To

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively; To Esteem His Own Life The Text, And Books The Commentary. Thus Compelled, The Muse Of History Will Utter Oracles As Never To Those Who Do Not Respect Themselves.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Moral Equalizes All; Enriches, Empowers All. It Is The Coin Which Buys All, And Which All Find In Their Pocket. Under The Whipof The Driver, The Slave Shall Feel His Equality With Saints And Heroes.

The Poet, The Painter, The Sculptor, The Musican, The Architect, Seek Each To Concentrate This Radiance Of The World On One Point, And Each In His Several Work To Satisfy The Love Of Beauty Which Stimulates Him To Produce.

Beauty Is An Outward Gift, Which Is Seldom Despised, Except By Those To Whom It Has Been Refused.

Books Are The Best Of Things, Well Used; Abused, Among The Worst...they Are For Nothing But To Inspire.

Every Man Is A Borrower And A Mimic, Life Is Theatrical And Literature A Quotation.

Conversation Is An Evanescent Relation,--no More.

There Are Eyes, To Be Sure, That Give No More Admission Into The Man Than Blueberries.

Nature Is A Language And Every New Fact One Learns Is A New Word; But It Is Not A Language Taken To Pieces And Dead In The Dictionary, But The Language Put Together Into A Most Significant And Universal Sense. I Wish To Learn This Language - Not That I May Know A New Grammar, But That I May Read The Great Book Which Is Written In That Tongue.

The Life Of Truth Is Cold.

Fate, Then, Is A Name For Facts Not Yet Passed Under The Fire Of Thought; For Causes Which Are Unpenetrated.

But There Are Higher Secrets Of Culture, Which Are Not For The Apprentices, But For Proficients. These Are Lessons Only For The Brave. We Must Know Our Friends Under Ugly Masks. The Calamities Are Our Friends.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage. Whatever Course You Decide Upon, There Is Always Someone To Tell You That You Are Wrong.

Eyes...they Speak All Languages.

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

Things Have Their Laws As Well As Men, And Things Refuse To Be Trifled With.

The Reality Is More Excellent Than The Report.

Live In The Fields, And God Will Give You Lectures On Natural Philosophy Every Day.

The Unbelief Of The Age Is Attested By The Loud Condemnation Of Trifles.

The Wonder Is Always New That Any Sane Man Can Be A Sailor.

Only To Youth Will Spring Be Spring.

Every Moment Instructs, And Every Object; For Wisdom Is Infused Into Every Form. It Has Been Poured Into Us As Blood; It Convulsed Us As Pain; It Slid Into Us As Pleasure; It Enveloped Us In Dull, Melancholy Days, Or In Days Of Cheerful Labor; We Did Not Guess Its Essence Until After Long Time.

Nature Is A Tropical Swamp In Sunshine, On Whose Purlieus We Hear The Song Of Summer Birds, And See Prismatic Dewdrops, - But Her Interiors Are Terrific, Full Of Hydras And Crocodiles.

What A New Face Courage Puts On Everything!

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

What The Tender And Poetic Youth Dreams To-day, And Conjures Up With Inarticulate Speech, Is To-morrow The Vociferated Result Of Public Opinion, And The Day After Is The Character Of Nations.

Concentration Is The Secret Of Strength In Politics, In War, In Trade, In Short In All Management Of Human Affairs.

Focus And Concentration

We Prize Books, And They Prize Them Most Who Are Themselves Wise.

Natural Religion Supplies Still All The Facts Which Are Disguised Under The Dogma Of Popular Creeds. The Progress Of Religion Is Steadily To Its Identity With Morals.

Is The Parent Better Than The Child Into Whom He Has Cast His Ripened Being? Whence, Then, This Worship Of The Past?

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

Two Touch The String, The Harp Is Dumb.

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.

Every Act Of The Man Inscribes Itself In The Memories Of His Fellows, And In His Own Manners And Face. The Air Is Full Of Sounds;the Sky, Of Tokens; The Ground Is All Memoranda And Signatures; And Every Object Covered Over With Hints, Which Speak To The Intelligent.

That Which Befits Us, Embosomed In Beauty And Wonder As We Are, Is Cheerfulness, And Courage, And The Endeavor To Realize Our Aspirations. Shall Not The Heart Which Has Received So Much, Trust The Power By Which It Lives? May It Not Quit Other Leadings, And Listen To The Soul That Has Guided It So Gently, And Taught It So Much, Secure That The Future Will Be Worthy Of The Past?

It Is In The Stomach Of Plants That Development Begins, And Ends In The Circles Of The Universe. 'tis A Long Scale From The Gorilla To The Gentleman,--from The Gorilla To Plato, Newton, Shakespeare,--to The Sanctities Of Religion, The Refinements Of Legislation, The Summit Of Science, Art, And Poetry. The Beginnings Are Slow And Infirm, But It Is An Always Accelerated March.

Great Men Do Not Content Us. It Is Their Solitude, Not Their Force, That Makes Them Conspicuous.

By Going One Step Further Back In Thought, Discordant Opinions Are Reconciled By Being Seen To Be Two Extremes Of One Principle, And We Can Never Go So Far Back As To Preclude A Still Higher Vision.

All Men Are Poets At Heart.

Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Short Distances The Senses Are Despotic.

The Genius Is A Genius By The First Look He Casts On Any Object. Is His Eye Creative? Does He Not Rest In Angles And Colors, But Beholds The Design,--he Will Presently Undervalue The Actual Object.

No Law Can Be Sacred To Me But That Of My Nature. Good And Bad Are But Names Very Readily Transferable To That Or This; The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.

We Live In A System Of Approximations. Every End Is Prospective Of Some Other End, Which Is Also Temporary; A Round And Final Success Nowhere. We Are Encamped In Nature, Not Domesticated.

Time, Which Shows So Vacant, Indivisible, And Divine In Its Coming, Is Slit And Peddled Into Trifles And Tatters. A Door Is To Bepainted, A Lock To Be Repaired. I Want Wood, Or Oil, Or Meal, Or Salt; The House Smokes, Or I Have A Headache; Then The Tax; And An Affair To Be Transacted With A Man Without Heart Or Brains; And The Stinging Recollection Of An Injurious Or Very Awkward Word,--these Eat Up The Hours.

Words Are Also Actions, And Actions Are A Kind Of Words.

Manners Aim To Facilitate Life, To Get Rid Of Impediments, And Bring The Man Pure To Energize. They Aid Our Dealing And Conversation, As A Railway Aids Travelling, By Getting Rid Of All Avoidable Obstructions Of The Road, And Leaving Nothing To Be Conquered But Pure Space.

It Is A Greater Joy To See The Author's Author, Than Himself.

Little Thinks, In The Field, Yon Red-cloaked Clown, Of Thee, From The Hill-top Looking Down; And The Heifer, That Lows In The Upland Farm, Far-heard, Lows Not Thine Ear To Charm; The Sexton Tolling The Bell At Noon, Dreams Not That Great Napoleon Sto

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.

Shakspeare Is The Only Biographer Of Shakspeare; And Even He Can Tell Nothing, Except To The Shakspeare In Us; That Is, To Our Most Apprehensive And Sympathetic Hour.

It Is Only When Mind And Character Slumber That The Dress Can Be Seen. If The Intellect Were Always Awake, And Every Noble Sentiment, The Man Might Go In Huckaback Or Mats, And His Dress Would Be Admired And Imitated.

Everything Is Prospective, And Man Is To Live Hereafter. That The World Is For His Education Is The Only Sane Solution Of The Enigma.

Every Man's Condition Is A Solution In Hieroglyph To Those Inquiries He Would Put. He Acts It As Life Before He Apprehends It As Truth.

All Poets Have Signalized Their Consciousness Of Rare Moments When They Were Superior To Themselves, -when A Light, A Freedom, A Power Came To Them Which Lifted Them To Performances Far Better Than They Could Reach At Other Times.

We Owe To Man Higher Succors Than Food And Fire. We Owe To Man, Man.

Pay No Heed To The Average Photographer's Remarks Upon "flat" And "weak" Negatives. Probably He Is Flat, Weak, Stale, And Unprofitable; Your Negative May Be First-rate, And Probably Is If He Does Not Approve Of It.

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

Treat Your Friend As A Spectacle.

The Compensations Of Calamity Are Made Apparent To The Understanding Also, After Long Intervals Of Time.

The Soul Is Not Born; It Does Not Die; It Was Not Produced From Anyone Unborn, Eternal, It Is Not Slain, Though The Body Is Slain.

He Who Travels In Search Of Something Which He Has Not Got, Travels Away From Himself And Grows Old Even In Youth Among Old Things.

Life Is Not Measured By Its Length, But By Its Depth.

The Work Of Vegetation Begins First In The Irritability Of The Bark And Leaf-buds.

Is Not Prayer Also A Study Of Truth,--a Sally Of The Soul Into The Unfound Infinite? No Man Ever Prayed Heartily, Without Learningsomething. But When A Faithful Thinker, Resolute To Detach Every Object From Personal Relations, And See It In The Light Of Thought, Shall, At The Same Time, Kindle Science With The Fire Of The Holiest Affections, Then Will God Go Forth Anew Into Creation.

I Believe It Is The Conviction Of The Purest Men, That The Net Amount Of Man And Man Does Not Much Vary. Each Is Incomparably Superior To His Companion In Some Faculty. His Want Of Skill In Other Directions, Has Added To His Fitness For His Own Work.

Men Should Take Their Knowledge From The Sun, The Moon And The Stars.

I Find It More Credible, Since It Is Anterior Information, That One Man Should Know Heaven, As The Chinese Say, Than That So Many Men Should Know The World.

Nature Will Not Be Buddhist: She Resents Generalizing, And Insults The Philosopher In Every Moment With A Million Fresh Particulars.

The Universe Is Represented In Every One Of It's Particles. Everything Is Made Of One Hidden Stuff. The World Globes Itself In A Drop Of Dew. The True Doctrine Of Omnipresence Is That God Appears With All His Parts In Every Moss And Cobweb.

Yet Some Natures Are Too Good To Be Spoiled By Praise, And Wherever The Vein Of Thought Reaches Down Into The Profound, There Is No Danger From Vanity. Solemn Friends Will Warn Them Of The Danger Of The Head's Being Turned By The Flourish Of Trumpets, But They Can Afford To Smile.

The Secret Of Success In Society Is A Certain Heartiness And Sympathy. A Man Who Is Not Happy In Company, Cannot Find Any Word In His Memory That Will Fit The Occasion; All His Information Is A Little Impertinent. A Man Who Is Happy There, Finds In Every Turn Of The Conversation Occasions For The Introduction Of What He Has To Say. The Favorites Of Society Are Able Men, And Of More Spirit Than Wit, Who Have No Uncomfortable Egotism, But Who Exactly Fill The Hour And The Company, Contended And Contenting.

Never Utter The Truism But Live It Among Men.

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.

Is Not Prayer A Study Of Truth, A Sally Of The Soul Into The Unfound Infinite? No Man Ever Prayed Heartily Without Learning Something.

Every Revolution Was First A Thought In One Man's Mind; And When The Same Thought Occurs To Another Man, It Is The Key To That Era.

A Man In The Wrong May More Easily Be Convinced Than One Half Right.

Divine Persons Are Character Born, Or, To Borrow A Phrase From Napoleon, They Are Victory Organized.

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

Say Thank You! I Want To Hear You Say It Now. Out Loud. 'thank You.' You're Saying Thank You Because Your Faith Is So Strong That You Don't Doubt That Whatever The Problem, You'll Get Through It. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know That Even In The Eye Of The Storm, God Has Put A Rainbow In The Clouds. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know There's No Problem Created That Can Compare To The Creator Of All Things. Say Thank You!

The Only True Gifts Are A Portion Of Yourself.

Good Criticism Is Very Rare And Always Precious.

Instead Of Feeling A Poverty When We Encounter A Great Man, Let Us Treat The New Comer Like A Travelling Geologist, Who Passes Through Our Estate, And Shows Us Good Slate, Or Limestone, Or Anthracite, In Our Brush Pasture.

People Who Wash Much Have A High Mind About It, And Talk Down To Those Who Wash Little.

The Real And Lasting Victories Are Those Of Peace, And Not Of War.

No Facts To Me Are Sacred; None Are Profane.

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

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.

Nature Has Made Up Her Mind That What Cannot Defend Itself Shall Not Be Defended.

You Must Treat The Days Respectfully, You Must Be A Day Yourself, And Not Interrogate It Like A College Professor.

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.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Practical Poet.

I Pray My Companion, If He Wishes For Bread, To Ask Me For Bread, And If He Wishes For Sassafras Or Arsenic, To Ask Me For Them, And Not To Hold Out His Plate, As If I Knew Already.

Old & New Put Their Stamp To Everything In Nature. The Snowflake That Is Now Falling Is Marked By Both. The Present Moment Gives The Motion & The Color Of The Flake: Antiquity, Its Form & Properties. All Things Wear A Luster Which Is The Gift Of The Present & A Tarnish Of Time.

Life Must Be Lived On A Higher Plane. We Must Go Up To A Higher Platform, To Which We Are Always Invited To Ascend; There, The Whole Aspect Of Things Changes.

I Shun Father And Mother And Wife And Brother When My Genius Calls Me. I Would Write On The Lintels Of The Door-post, Whim. I Hope That It Is Somewhat Better Than Whim At Last, But We Cannot Spend The Day In Explanation.

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

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

Would We Codify The Laws That Should Reign In Households, And Whose Daily Transgression Annoys And Mortifies Us, And Degrades Our Household Life, We Must Adorn Every Day With Sacrifices. Good Manners Are Made Up Of Petty Sacrifices.

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

A Day Is A Miniature Eternity.

Nature Arms Each Man With Some Faculty Which Enables Him To Do Easily Some Feat Impossible To Any Other, And Thus Makes Him Necessary To Society. ... Society Can Never Prosper, But Must Always Be Bankrupt, Until Every Man Does That Which He Was Created To Do.

A Human Being Should Beware How He Laughs, For Then He Shows All His Faults.

All Good Conversation, Manners, And Action Come From A Spontaneity Which Forgets Usages And Makes The Moment Great.

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.

Every Man Is A Consumer, And Ought To Be A Producer. He Is By Constitution Expensive, And Needs To Be Rich.

Happy Is The House That Shelters A Friend.

The Religion Which Is To Guide And Fulfill The Present And Coming Ages, Whatever Else It Be, Must Be Intellectual. The Scientific Mind Must Have A Faith Which Is Science.

Valor Consists In The Power Of Self-recovery, So That A Man Cannot Have His Flank Turned, Cannot Be Out-generalled, But Put Him Where You Will, He Stands.

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

The Sanity Of Society Is A Balance Of A Thousand Insanity's.

Walking Has The Best Value As Gymnastics Of The Mind.

Beware Of Jokes From Which We Go Away Hollow And Ashamed.

The Measure Of A Master Is His Success In Bringing All Men Around To His Opinion Twenty Years Later.

Congratulations

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

The Secret Of Fortune Is Joy In Our Hands.

Other Men Are Lenses Through Which We Read Our Own Minds. Each Man Seeks Those Of Different Quality From His Own, And Such As Are Good Of Their Kind; That Is, He Seeks Other Men, And The Rest.

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.

The Corruption Of Man Is Followed By The Corruption Of Language.

Vanity Costs Money, Labor, Horses, Men, Women, Health And Peace, And Is Still Nothing At Last,--a Long Way Leading Nowhere.

Solitary Converse With Nature; For Thence Are Ejaculated Sweet And Dreadful Words Never Uttered In Libraries. Ah! The Spring Days, The Summer Dawns, And October Woods!

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

Sometimes A Scream Is Better Than A Thesis.

Society Cannot Do Without Cultivated Men. As Soon As The First Wants Are Satisfied, The Higher Wants Become Imperative.

There Is No Doctrine Of The Reason Which Will Bear To Be Taught By The Understanding.

Wouldst Thou Shut Up The Avenues Of Ill, Pay Every Debt As If God Wrote The Bill.

Half A Man's Wisdom Goes With His Courage.

There Is Really No Insurmountable Barrier Save Your Own Inherent Weakness Of Purpose.

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity. All Men, All Things, The State, The Church, Yea The Friends Of The Heart Are Phantasms And Unreal Beside The Sanctuary Of The Heart. With So Much Awe, With So Much Fear, Let It Be Respected.

Do That Which You Fear To Do, And The Fear Will Die.

Some Natures Are Too Good To Be Spoiled By Praise.

We But Half Express Ourselves, And Are Ashamed Of That Divine Idea Which Each Of Us Represents. It May Be Safely Trusted As Proportionate And Of Good Issues, So It Be Faithfully Imparted, But God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards.

If We Will Not Interfere With Our Thought, But Will Act Entirely, Or See How The Thing Stands In God, We Know The Particular Thing, And Every Thing, And Every Man.

Two Sorts Of Writers Possess Genius: Those Who Think, And Those Who Cause Others To Think.

People Say Law But They Mean Wealth.

The Transcendentalist Adopts The Whole Connection Of Spiritual Doctrine. He Believes In Miracle, In The Perpetual Openness Of Thehuman Mind To New Influx Of Light And Power; He Believes In Inspiration, And In Ecstacy.

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

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.

Do You Love Me? Means At Last Do You See The Same Truth I See? If You Do, We Are Happy Together; But When Presently One Of Us Passes Into The Perception Of A New Truth, We Are Divorced And The Force Of All Nature Cannot Hold Us To Each Other.

Time Is Indeed The Theater And Seat Of Illusions; Nothing Is So Ductile And Elastic. The Mind Stretches An Hour To A Century, And Dwarfs An Age To An Hour.

We Can See Well Into The Past; We Can Guess Shrewdly Into The Future, But That Which Is Rolled Up And Muffled In Impenetrable Folds Is Today.

The Miracles Of Genius Always Rest On Profound Convictions Which Refuse To Be Analyzed.

A Man Becomes What He Thinks About Most Of The Time

The Uses Of Travel Are Occasional, And Short; But The Best Fruit It Finds, When It Finds It, Is Conversation; And This Is A Main Function Of Life.

Character Teaches Above Our Wills.

A True Man Belongs To No Other Time Or Place, But Is The Center Of Things.

What Goes On Around You... Compares Little With What Goes On Inside You.

The Goitre Of Egotism Is So Frequent Among Notable Persons, That We Must Infer Some Strong Necessity In Nature Which It Subserves;such As We See In The Sexual Attraction.

Every Ship That Comes To America Got Its Chart From Columbus.

The Counting-room Maxims Liberally Expounded Are Laws Of The Universe. The Merchant's Economy Is A Coarse Symbol Of The Soul's Economy. It Is, To Spend For Power, And Not For Pleasure.

For The Resolute And Determined, There Is Time And Opportunity.

There Are Faces So Fluid With Expression, So Flushed And Rippled By The Play Of Thought, That We Can Hardly Find What The Mere Features Really Are. When The Delicious Beauty Of Lineament Loses Its Power, It Is Because A More Delicious Beauty Has Appeared, That An Interior And Durable Form Has Been Disclosed.

Science Was False By Being Unpoetical. It Assumed To Explain A Reptile Or A Mollusk, And Isolated It-which Is Hunting For Life In Graveyards. Reptile Or Mollusk Or Man Or Angel Only Exists In System, In Relation.

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.

All Diseases Run Into One, Old Age.

Funny Relationship

The World Is Always Childish, And With Each New Gewgaw Of A Revolution Or New Constitution That It Finds, Thinks It Shall Never Cry Any More.

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

Vigor Is Contagious, And Whatever Makes Us Either Think Or Feel Strongly Adds To Our Power And Enlarges Our Field Of Action.

A Man In A Cave Or In A Camp, A Nomad, Will Die With No More Estate Than The Wolf Or The Horse Leaves.

You Have First An Instinct, Then An Opinion, Then A Knowledge, As The Plant Has Root, Bud, And Fruit.

All History Is But The Lengthened Shadow Of A Great Man.

A Man Is Like A Bit Of Labrador Spar, Which Has No Lustre As You Turn It In Your Hand Until You Come To A Particular Angle; Then It Shows Deep And Beautiful Colors. There Is No Adaptation Or Universal Applicability In Men, But Each Has His Special Talent, And The Mastery Of Successful Men Consists In Adroitly Keeping Themselves Where And When That Turn Shall Be Oftenest To Be Practiced.

There Is An Intimate Interdependence Of Intellect And Morals.

Our Desires Presage The Capacities Within Us; They Are Harbingers Of What We Shall Be Able To Accomplish. What We Can Do And Want To Do Is Projected In Our Imagination, Quite Outside Ourselves, And Into The Future. We Are Attracted To What Is Already Ours In Secret. Thus Passionate Anticipation Transforms What Is Indeed Possible Into Dreamt-for Reality.

I Quote Another Man's Saying; Unluckily, That Other Withdraws Himself In The Same Way, And Quotes Me.

The Difference Between Talent And Genius Is That Talent Says Things Which He Has Never Heard But Once, And Genius Things Which He Has Never Heard.

For Beauty Is God's Handwriting...a Nd, Thank God For It As A Cup Of His Blessing.

Christian Inspirational

The Reason Why The World Lacks Unity, And Lies Broken And In Heaps, Is, Because Man Is Disunited With Himself.

The Delicious Faces Of Children, The Beauty Of School-girls, "the Sweet Seriousness Of Sixteen," The Lofty Air Of Well-born, Well-bred Boys, The Passionate Histories In The Looks And Manners Of Youth And Early Manhood, And The Varied Power In All That Well-known Company That Escort Us Through Life,--we Know How These Forms Thrill, Paralyze, Provoke, Inspire, And Enlarge Us.

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

He Who Has A Thousand Friends Has Not A Friend To Spare, While He Who Has One Enemy Shall Meet Him Everywhere.

Music Is The Poor Man's Parnassus.

The Best Part Of Health Is Fine Disposition

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.

Slavery It Is That Makes Slavery; Freedom, Freedom. The Slavery Of Women Happened When The Men Were Slaves Of Kings.

We Judge Others By Their Actions But We Judge Ourselves By Our Intensions.

The Essence Of Greatness Is The Perception That Virtue Is Enough.

The Man For Whom The Law Exists - The Man Of Forms, The Conservative - Is A Tame Man.

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.

God Has Delegated Himself To A Million Deputies.

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.

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year. No Man Has Learned Anything Rightly, Until He Knows That Every Day Is Doomsday.

Inspirational Life

Imagination Is Not A Talent Of Some Men But Is The Health Of Every Man.

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

When We Are Exalted By Ideas, We Do Not Owe This To Plato, But To The Idea, To Which Also Plato Was Debtor.

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.

There Are Dull And Bright, Sacred And Profane, Coarse And Fine Egotists. It Is A Disease That, Like Influenza, Falls On All Constitutions. In The Distemper Known To Physicians As Chorea, The Patient Sometimes Turns Round, And Continues To Spin Slowly In One Spot. Is Egotism A Metaphysical Varioloid Of This Malady?

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

Nature Is Upheld By Antagonism.

Women Have A Less Accurate Measure Of Time Than Men; There Is A Clock In Adam, None In Eve.

Man Sheds Grief As His Skin Sheds Rain.

Knowledge Is The Antidote To Fear,- Knowledge, Use And Reason, With Its Higher Aids.

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

Commerce Is Of Trivial Import; Love, Faith, Truth Of Character, The Aspiration Of Man, These Are Sacred.

Five Minutes Of Today Are Worth As Much To Me, As Five Minutes In The Next Millennium. Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today.

The Ornaments Of Our Homes Are The Friends That Visit It

Contemporary American Psychiatrist It Is A Happy Talent To Know How To Play.

I Remember An Answer Which When Quite Young I Was Prompted To Make A Valued Adviser Who Was Wont To Importune Me With The Dear Old Doctrines Of The Church. On My Saying, What Have I To Do With The Sacredness Of Traditions, If I Live Wholly From Within? My Friend Suggested, - "but These Impulses May Be From Below, Not From Above." I Replied, 'they Do Not Seem To Me To Be Such; But If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then From The Devil.'

We Want A State Of Things In Which Crime Will Not Pay, A State Of Things Which Allows Every Man The Largest Liberty Compatible With The Liberty Of Every Other Man.

When The Literary Class Betray A Destitution Of Faith, It Is Not Strange That Society Should Be Disheartened And Sensualized By Unbelief.

And Truly It Demands Something God Like In Him Who Has Cast Off The Common Motives Of Humanity, And Has Ventured To Trust Himself For A Taskmaster. High Be His Heart, Faithful His Will, Clear His Sight, That He May In Good Earnest Be Doctrine, Society, Law, To Himself, That A Simple Purpose May Be To Him As Strong As Iron Necessity Is To Others!

Nature Is Reckless Of The Individual. When She Has Points To Carry, She Carries Them.

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