Background Image

...

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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Way To Learn

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

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.

Views: 7

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

And What Avails It That Science Has Come To Treat Space And Time As Simply Forms Of Thought, And The Material World As Hypothetical, And Withal Our Pretension Of Property And Even Of Self-hood Are Fading With The Rest, If, At Last, Even Our Thoughts Are Not Finalities, But The Incessant Flowing And Ascension Reach These Also, And Each Thought Which Yesterday Was A Finality, To-day Is Yielding To A Larger Generalization?

The Hand That Rounded Peter's Dome, And Groined The Aisles Of Christian Rome, Wrought In A Sad Sincerity; Himself From God He Could Not Free; He Builded Better Than He Knew: The Conscious Stone To Beauty Grew.

Humility Is The Secret Of The Wise.

Go, Speed The Stars Of Thought On To Their Shining Goals; - The Sower Scatters Broad His Seed, The Wheat Thou Strew'st Be Souls.

O, When I Am Safe In My Sylvan Home, I Mock At The Pride Of Greece And Rome; And When I Am Stretch'd Beneath The Pines When The Evening Star So Holy Shines, I Laugh At The Lore And Pride Of Man, At The Sophist's Schools, And The Learned Clan; For What Are They All In Their High Conceit, When Man In The Bush With God May Meet?

We Postpone Our Literary Work Until We Have More Ripeness And Skill To Write, And We One Day Discover That Our Literary Talent Wasa Youthful Effervescence Which We Have Now Lost.

When A Happy Person Comes Into The Room, It Is As If Another Candle Has Been Lit.

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

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

Although This Garrulity Of Advising Is Born With Us, I Confess That Life Is Rather A Subject Of Wonder, Than Of Didactics. So Muchfate, So Much Irresistible Dictation From Temperament And Unknown Inspiration Enter Into It, That We Doubt We Can Say Anything Out Of Our Own Experience Whereby To Help Each Other.

The Whole Secret Of The Teacher's Force Lies In The Conviction That Men Are Convertible.

Nature, As We Know Her, Is No Saint.... She Comes Eating And Drinking And Sinning.

Every Noble Activity Makes Room For Itself.

The Whole Of Heraldry And Of Chivalry Is In Courtesy. A Man Of Fine Manners Shall Pronounce Your Name With All The Ornament That Titles Of Nobility Could Ever Add.

There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right.

My Friends Have Come To Me Unsought. The Great God Gave Them To Me. By Oldest Right, By The Divine Affinity Of Virtue With Itself,i Find Them, Or Rather Not I, But The Deity In Me And In Them Derides And Cancels The Thick Walls Of The Individual Character, Relation, Age, Sex, Circumstance, At Which He Usually Connives, And Now Makes Many One.

Society Does Not Love Its Unmaskers.

Conversation Is An Evanescent Relation,--no More.

The Cheapness Of Man Is Every Day's Tragedy.

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

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

Pictures Must Not Be Too Picturesque.

The Desire Of Gold Is Not For Gold. It Is Not The Love Of Much Wheat, And Wool And Household Stuff. It Is The Means Of Freedom And Benefit.

Lovers Should Guard Their Strangeness. If They Forgive Too Much, All Slides Into Confusion And Meanness.

Whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist.

Being Different

The Universal Soul Is The Alone Creator Of The Useful And The Beautiful; Therefore To Make Anything Useful Or Beautiful, The Individual Must Be Submitted To The Universal Mind.

Economy Does Not Consist In Saving The Coal, But In Using The Time While It Burns.

We Are Reformers In The Spring And Summer, But In Autumn We Stand By The Old. Reformers In The Morning, And Conservers At Night.

The Cold, Inconsiderate Of Persons, Tingles Your Blood, Benumbs Your Feet, Freezes A Man Like An Apple.

A Good Form Strikes All Eyes Pleasantly, Long Before They Have Any Science On The Subject; And A Beautiful Face Sets Twenty Hearts In Palpitation, Prior To All Consideration Of The Mechanical Proportions Of The Features And Head.

The Universe Does Not Jest With Us, But Is In Earnest.

Sitting Back In The Evening, Stargazing And Stroking Your Dog, Is An Infallible Remedy.

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

So Shall We Come To Look At The World With New Eyes. It Shall Answer The Endless Inquiry Of The Intellect, — What Is Truth? And Of The Affections, — What Is Good? By Yielding Itself Passive To The Educated Will. ... Build, Therefore, Your Own World. As Fast As You Conform Your Life To The Pure Idea In Your Mind, That Will Unfold Its Great Proportions. A Correspondent Revolution In Things Will Attend The Influx Of The Spirit.

It Is One Soul Which Animates All Men.

The Eye Is Easily Frightened.

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

Enthusiasm Is The Leaping Lightning, Not To Be Measured By The Horse-power Of The Understanding

We Animate What We Can See, And We See Only What We Animate.

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.

Life Is A Festival Only To The Wise.

The True Thrift Is Always To Spend On The Higher Plane; To Invest And Invest, With Keener Avarice, That He May Spend In Spiritualcreation, And Not In Augmenting Animal Existence. Nor Is The Man Enriched, In Repeating The Old Experiments Of Animal Sensation; Nor Unless Through New Powers And Ascending Pleasures He Knows Himself By The Actual Experience Of Higher Good To Be Already On The Way To The Highest.

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

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.

A Woman Should Always Challenge Our Respect, And Never Move Our Compassion.

When It's Darkest, Men See The Stars.

Let A Man Attain The Highest And Broadest Culture That Any American Has Possessed, Then Let Him Die By Sea-storm, Railroad Collision, Or Other Accident, And All America Will Acquiesce That The Best Thing Has Happened To Him; That, After The Education Has Gone Far, Such Is The Expensiveness Of America, That The Best Use To Put A Fine Person To Is To Drown Him To Save His Board.

The First Questions Are Always To Be Asked, And The Wisest Doctor Is Gravelled By The Inquisitiveness Of A Child.

The Poor Are Only They Who Feel Poor.

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

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

When We Can't Piece Together The Puzzle Of Our Own Lives, Remember The Best View Of A Puzzle Is From Above. Let Him Help Put You Together.

Body Cannot Teach Wisdom; God Only.

Judge Of Your Natural Character By What You Do In Your Dreams.

Though We Travel The World Over To Find Beauty, We Must Carry It With Us Or We Find It Not . . . The Difference Between Landscape And Landscape Is Small, But There Is A Great Difference In Beholders.

The World Looks Like A Multiplication-table, Or A Mathematical Equation, Which, Turn It How You Will, Balances Itself.

Mathematical Equations

Each Philosopher, Each Bard, Each Actor Has Only Done For Me, As By A Delegate, What One Day I Can Do For Myself.

Trust Thyself: Every Heart Vibrates To That Iron String.

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

The Etymologist Finds The Deadest Word To Have Been Once A Brilliant Picture.

The Best Of Life Is Conversation.

A Child Reminds Us That Playtime Is An Essential Part Of Our Daily Routine.

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

The Believing We Do Something When We Do Nothing Is The First Illusion Of Tobacco.

It Is Doubtless A Vice To Turn One's Eyes Inward Too Much, But I Am My Own Comedy And Tragedy.

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.

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.

Hither Rolls The Storm Of Heat; I Feel Its Finer Billows Beat Like A Sea Which Me Infolds; Heat With Viewless Fingers Moulds, Swells, And Mellows, And Matures, Paints, And Flavors, And Allures, Bird And Brier Inly Warms, Still Enriches And Transforms, Gives The Reed And Lily Length, Adds To Oak And Oxen Strength, Transforming What It Doth Infold, Life Out Of Death, New Out Of Old.

Truth Is Beautiful, Without Doubt; But So Are Lies.

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

No Great Man Ever Complains Of Want Of Opportunity.

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

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

Observe How Every Truth And Every Error, Each A Thought Of Someone's Mind, Clothes Itself With Societies, Houses, Cities, Language, Ceremonies, Newspapers

Conservatism Is Affluent And Openhanded, But There Is A Cunning Juggle In Riches. I Observe That They Take Somewhat For Everythingthey Give. I Look Bigger, But Am Less; I Have More Clothes, But Am Nit So Warm; More Armor, But Less Courage; More Books, But Less Wit.

These Are The Voices Which We Hear In Solitude, But They Grow Faint And Inaudible As We Enter Into The World. Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Everyone Of Its Members. Society Is A Joint-stock Company, In Which The Members Agree, For The Better Securing Of His Bread To Each Shareholder, To Surrender The Liberty And Culture Of The Eater. The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity. Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

A Child Is A Curly, Dimpled Lunatic.

There Is Then Creative Reading As Well As Creative Writing. When The Mind Is Braced By Labor And Invention, The Page Of Whatever Book We Read Becomes Luminous With Manifold Allusion. Every Sentence Is Doubly Significant, And The Sense Of Our Author Is As Broad As The World.

Welcome Evermore To Gods And Men Is The Self-helping Man.

Never Try To Make Anyone Like You: You Know, And God Knows, That One Of You Is Enough.

A Man Should Learn To Detect And Watch That Gleam Of Light Which Flashes Across His Mind From Within, More Than The Luster Of The Firmament Of Bards And Sages

Knowledge Is The Knowing That We Cannot Know.

We Are Adapted To Infinity. We Are Hard To Please, And Love Nothing Which Ends: And In Nature Is No End; But Every Thing, At The End Of One Use, Is Lifted Into A Superior, And The Ascent Of These Things Climbs Into Daemonic And Celestial Natures.

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

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.

Finish Each Day And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could. Learn From It... Tomorrow Is A New Day.

Your Genuine Action Will Explain Itself, And Will Explain Your Other Genuine Actions. Your Conformity Explains Nothing.

I Think That The Heroism Which At This Day Would Make On Us The Impression Of Epaminondas And Phocion Must Be That Of A Domestic Conqueror. He Who Shall Bravely And Gracefully Subdue This Gorgon Of Convention And Fashion, And Show Men How To Lead A Clean, Handsome And Heroic Life Amid The Beggarly Elements Of Our Cities And Villages; Whoso Shall Teach Me How To Eat My Meat And Take My Repose And Deal With Men, Without Any Shame Following, Will Restore The Life Of Man To Splendor, And Make His Own Name Dear To All History.

...in The Wilderness, I Find Something More Dear And Connate Than In The Streets Or Villages...in The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

The Virtue You Would Like To Have, Assume It Is Already Yours, Appropriate It, Enter Into The Part And Live The Character Just As The Great Actor Is Absorbed In... The Part He Plays.

Every Man Is The Inlet And May Become The Outlet Of All There Is In God.

A Man Should Not Be A Silkworm; Nor A Nation A Tent Of Caterpillars.

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

Manners Make The Fortune Of The Ambitious Youth.

We Grant No Dukedoms To The Few, We Hold Like Rights And Shall; Equal On Sunday In The Pew, On Monday In The Mall. For What Avail The Plough Or Sail, Or Land, Or Life, If Freedom Fail?

Drudgery, Calamity, Exasperation, Want, Are Instructors In Eloquence And Wisdom.

To The Men Of This World, To The Animal Strength And Spirits, To The Men Of Practical Power, Whilst Immersed In It, The Man Of Ideas Appears Out Of His Reason. They Alone Gave Reason.

Whilst The Rights Of All As Persons Are Equal, In Virtue Of Their Access To Reason, Their Rights In Property Are Very Unequal. Oneman Owns His Clothes, And Another Owns A Country.

Though We Travel The World Over To Find The Beautiful, We Must Carry It With Us Or We Find It Not.

If A Man Fasten His Attention On A Single Aspect Of Truth And Apply Himself To That Alone For A Long Time, The Truth Becomes Distorted And Not Itself But Falsehood.

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.

But, If We Explore The Literature Of Heroism, We Shall Quickly Come To Plutarch, Who Is Its Doctor And Historian. To Him We Owe The Brasidas, The Dion, The Epaminodas, The Scipio Of Old, And I Must Think We Are More Deeply Indebted To Him Than To All The Ancient Writers. Each Of His "lives" Is A Refutation To The Despondency And Cowardice Of Our Religious And Political Theorists. A Wild Courage, A Stoicism Not Of The Schools, But Of The Blood, Shines In Every Anecdote, And Had Given That Book Immense Fame.

The True Preacher Can Be Known By This, That He Deals Out To The People His Life,--life Passed Through The Fire Of Thought.

We Flee Away From Cities, But We Bring The Best Of Cities, These Learned Classifiers, Men Knowing What They Seek, Armed Eyes Of Experts.

The Spirit Of The World, The Great Calm Presence Of The Creator, Comes Not Forth To The Sorceries Of Opium Or Of Wine.

The Intellect Is Vagabond, And Our System Of Education Fosters Restlessness. Our Minds Travel When Our Bodies Are Forced To Stay At Home. We Imitate; And What Is Imitation But The Travelling Of The Mind?

It Is Easy To See That What Is Best Written Or Done By Genius In The World, Was No Man's Work But Came By Wide Social Labor, Whena Thousand Wrought Like One, Sharing The Same Impulse.

There The Great Planter Plants Of Fruitful Worlds The Grain, And With A Million Spells Enchants The Souls That Walk In Pain.

Consistency Is The Bugbear That Frightens Little Minds.

The Surest Poison Is Time.

Time Management

All Writing Is By The Grace Of God. People Do Not Deserve To Have Good Writing, They Are So Pleased With Bad. In These Sentences That You Show Me, I Can Find No Beauty, For I See Death In Every Clause And Every Word. There Is A Fossil Or A Mummy Character Which Pervades This Book. The Best Sepulchers, The Vastest Catacombs, Thebes And Cairo, Pyramids, Are Sepulchers To Me. I Like Gardens And Nurseries. Give Me Initiative, Spermatic, Prophesying, Man-making Words.

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

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.

I Will Not Hide My Tastes Or Aversions. I Will So Trust That What Is Deep Is Holy, That I Will Do Strongly Before The Sun And Moon Whatever Only Rejoices Me, And The Heart Appoints

There Is No Calamity That Right Words Will Not Begin To Redress

The Next Best Thing To Saying A Good Thing Yourself Is To Quote One.

You Shall Have Joy, Or You Shall Have Power, Said God; You Shall Not Have Both.

I Find The Englishman To Be Him Of All Men Who Stands Firmest In His Shoes. They Have In Themselves What They Value In Their Horses, Mettle And Bottom.

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

Slavery Is An Institution For Converting Men Into Monkeys.

Let A Man Then Know His Worth And Keep Things Under His Feet.

A System-grinder Hates The Truth.

The Most Useful Man In The Most Useful World, So Long As Only Commodity Was Served, Would Remain Unsatisfied. But, As Fast As He Sees Beauty, Life Acquires A Very High Value.

The Simplest Words,--we Do Not Know What They Mean Except When We Love And Aspire.

Women, More Than All, Are The Element And Kingdom Of Illusion. Being Fascinated, They Fascinate.

It Depends Little On The Object, Much On The Mood, In Art.

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

They Who Talk Much Of Destiny, Their Birth-star, Etc., Are In A Lower Dangerous Plane, And Invite The Evils They Fear.

So Each Man, Like Each Plant, Has His Parasites. A Strong, Astringent, Bilious Nature Has More Truculent Enemies Than The Slugs And Moths That Fret My Leaves. Such A One Has Curculios, Borers, Knife-worms; A Swindler Ate Him First, Then A Client, Then A Quack, Then Smooth, Plausible Gentlemen, Bitter And Selfish As Moloch.

Finish Each Day Before You Begin The Next, And Interpose A Solid Wall Of Sleep Between The Two. This You Cannot Do Without Temperance.

The Growth Of The Intellect Is Spontaneous In Every Expansion. The Mind That Grows Could Not Predict The Times, The Means, The Mode Of That Spontaneity. God Enters By A Private Door Into Every Individual.

Science In England, In America, Is Jealous Of Theory, Hates The Name Of Love And Moral Purpose. There's Revenge For This Humanity.what Manner Of Man Does Science Make? The Boy Is Not Attracted. He Says, I Do Not Wish To Be Such A Kind Of Man As My Professor Is.

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

There Is A Blessed Necessity By Which The Interest Of Men Is Always Driving Them To The Right; And, Again, Making All Crime Mean And Ugly.

We May Be Partial, But Fate Is Not.

Draw, If Thou Canst, The Mystic Line, Severing Rightly His From Thine, Which Is Human, Which Divine.

Things Admit Of Being Used As Symbols, Because Nature Is A Symbol, In The Whole, And In Every Part.

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

I Must Feel Pride In My Friend's Accomplishments As If They Were Mine,--and A Property In His Virtues. I Feel As Warmly When He Ispraised, As The Lover When He Hears Applause Of His Engaged Maiden.

Do Not Require A Description Of The Countries Towards Which You Sail. The Description Does Not Describe Them To You, And To- Morrow You Arrive There, And Know Them By Inhabiting Them.

Private, Accidental, Confidential Conversation Breeds Thought. Clubs Produce Oftener Words.

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

The World Of Men Show Like A Comedy Without Laughter: Populations, Interests, Government, History; 't Is All Toy Figures In A Toyhouse.

The Truth, The Hope, Of Any Time Must Be Sought In The Minorities. Michael Angelo Was The Conscience Of Italy. We Grow Free With His Name, And Find It Ornamental Now, But In His Own Day His Friends Were Few.

The Soul Lets No Man Go Without Some Visitations And Holy-days Of A Diviner Presence.

I Have Just Been Conversing With One Man, To Whom No Weight Of Adverse Experience Will Make It For A Moment Appear Impossible That Thousands Of Human Beings Might Exercise Towards Each Other The Grandest And Simplest Sentiments, As Well As A Knot Of Friends, Or A Pair Of Lovers.

The Oversoul Is Before Time, And Time, Father Of All Else, Is One Of His Children.

We Dare Not Trust Our Wit For Making Our House Pleasant To Our Friend, So We Buy Ice Cream.

Great Men Are More Distinguished By Range And Extent Than By Originality.

Patience And Fortitude Conquer All Things.

Who Shall Set A Limit To The Influence Of A Human Being? There Are Men, Who, By Their Sympathetic Attractions, Carry Nations Withthem, And Lead The Activity Of The Human Race. And If There Be Such A Tie, That, Wherever The Mind Of Man Goes, Nature Will Accompany Him, Perhaps There Are Men Whose Magnetisms Are Of That Force To Draw Material And Elemental Powers, And, Where They Appear, Immense Instrumentalities Organize Around Them.

Words Are Alive. Cut Them And They Bleed.

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 World Is His Who Has Money To Go Over It.

I Will Not Hide My Tastes Or Aversions. If You Are True, But Not In The Same Truth With Me, Cleave To Your Companions; I Will Seek My Own.

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity.

The Angels Are So Enamored Of The Language That Is Spoken In Heaven That They Will Not Distort Their Lips With The Hissing And Unmusical Dialects Of Men, But Speak Their Own, Whether Their Be Any Who Understand It Or Not.

We But Half Express Ourselves, And Are Ashamed Of That Divine Idea Which Each Of Us Represents.

We Infer The Spirit Of The Nation In Great Measure From The Language, Which Is A Sort Of Monument, To Which Each Forcible Individual In A Course Of Many Hundred Years Has Contributed A Stone.

A Weed Is A Plant Whose Virtue Is Not Yet Known.

Let The Man Stand On His Feet. Let Religion Cease To Be Occasional; And The Pulses Of Thought That Go To The Borders Of The Universe, Let Them Proceed From The Bosom Of The Household.

And Of Poetry, The Success Is Not Attained When It Lulls And Satisfies, But When It Astonishes And Fires Us With New Endeavours After The Unattainable.

Society Is Infected With Rude, Cynical, Restless, And Frivolous Persons Who Prey Upon The Rest, And Whom No Public Opinion Concentrated Into Good Manners, Forms Accepted By The Sense Of All, Can Reach; The Contradictors And Railers At Public And Private Tables, Who Are Like Terriers, Who Conceive It The Duty Of A Dog Of Honor To Growl At Any Passer-by, And Do The Honors Of The House By Barking Him Out Of Sight.

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

Universally, The Better Gold The Worse Man. The Political Economist Defies Us To Show Any Gold Mine Country That Is Traversed By Good Roads, Or A Shore Where Pearls Are Found On Which Good Schools Are Erected.

Life Consists In What A Man Is Thinking Of All Day.

In The True Mythology, Love Is An Immortal Child, And Beauty Leads Him As A Guide; Nor Can We Express A Deeper Sense Than When We Say, Beauty Is The Pilot Of The Young Soul.

He Cumbers Himself Never About Consequences, About Interests; He Gives An Independent, Genuine Verdict. You Must Court Him: He Does Not Court You. But The Man Is, As It Were, Clapped Into Jail By His Consciousness.

The Squirrel Hoards Nuts And The Bee Gathers Honey, Without Knowing What They Do, And They Are Thus Provided For Without Selfishness Or Disgrace.

What Is Civilization? I Answer, The Power Of Good Women.

Though I Am Weak, Yet God, When Prayed, Cannot Withhold His Conquering Aid.

The Possibility Of Interpretation Lies In The Identity Of The Observer With The Observed. Each Material Thing Has Its Celestial Side; Has Its Translation, Through Humanity, Into The Spiritual And Necessary Sphere, Where It Plays A Part As Indestructible As Any Other.

Talents Differ; All Is Well And Wisely Put; If I Cannot Carry Forests On My Back, Neither Can You Crack A Nut.

A Home Kept To The End Of Display Is Impossible To All But A Few Women, And Their Success Is Dearly Bought.

Many Eyes Go Through The Meadow, But Few See The Flowers In It

The Power Which Resides In Him Is New In Nature, And None But He Knows What That Is Which He Can Do, Nor Does He Know Until He Has Tried.

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

Truth, And Goodness, And Beauty, Are But Different Faces Of The Same All

Different Faces

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.

Our Admiration Of The Antique Is Not Admiration Of The Old, But Of The Natural.

A Certain Awkwardness Marks The Use Of Borrowed Thoughts; But As Soon As We Have Learned What To Do With Them, They Become Our Own.

An Empire Is An Immense Egotism.

Man Is Made Of The Same Atoms The World Is, He Shares The Same Impressions, Predispositions, And Destiny. When His Mind Is Illuminated, When His Heart Is Kind, He Throws Himself Joyfully Into The Sublime Order, And Does, With Knowledge, What The Stones Do By Structure.

Whatever Limits Us We Call Fate.

Spring Still Makes Spring In The Mind When Sixty Years Are Told: Love Wakes Anew This Throbbing Heart, And We Are Never Old Over The Winter Glaciers I See The Summer Glow And Through The Wind-piled Snowdrift The Warm Rosebuds Below.

No Matter How You Seem To Fatten On A Crime, There Can Never Be Good For The Bee Which Is Bad For The Hive.

No Love Can Be Bound By Oath Or Covenant To Secure It Against A Higher Love.

The Question Is Whether [suicide] Is The Way Out, Or The Way In.

Every Heroic Act Measures Itself By Its Contempt Of Some External Good. But It Finds Its Own Success At Last, And Then The Prudent Also Extol.

The Quality Of The Imagination Is To Flow And Not To Freeze.

Genius Is The Power To Labor Better And More Availably. Deserve Thy Genius: Exalt It.

The Characteristic Of Genuine Heroism Is Its Persistency. All Men Have Wandering Impulses, Fits And Starts Of Generosity. But When You Have Resolved To Be Great, Abide By Yourself, And Do Not Weakly Try To Reconcile Yourself With The World. The Heroic Cannot Be The Common, Nor The Common The Heroic.

I Am The Owner Of The Sphere, Of The Seven Stars And The Solar Year, Of Caesar's Hand, And Plato's Brain, Of Lord Christ's Heart, And Shakespeare's Strain.

As Long As Our People Quote English Standards They Dwarf Their Own Proportions.

Every Young Man Is Prone To Be Misled By The Suggestions Of His Own Ill-founded Ambition Which He Mistakes For The Promptings Of Asecret Genius, And Thence Dreams Of Unrivaled Greatness.

We Love Flattery, Even Though We Are Not Deceived By It, Because It Shows That We Are Of Importance Enough To Be Courted.

Each Man, If He Attempts To Join Himself To Others, Is On All Sides Cramped And Diminished Of His Proportion; And The Stricter Theunion, The Smaller And The More Pitiful He Is. But Leave Him Alone, To Recognize In Every Hour And Place The Secret Soul, He Will Go Up And Down Doing The Works Of A True Member, And, To The Astonishment Of All, The Work Will Be Done With Concert, Though No Man Spoke.

Light Is The First Of Painters. There Is No Object So Foul That Intense Light Will Not Make It Beautiful.

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

Trending Author

Linford Christie

Richard Dean Anderson

Category