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There Are Many Eyes That Can Detect And Honor The Prudent And Household Virtues; There Are Many That Can Discern Genius On His Starry Track, Though The Mob Is Incapable; But When That Love Which Is All-suffering, All-abstaining, All-aspiring, Which Has Vowed To Itself, That It Will Be A Wretch And Also A Fool In This World, Sooner Than Soil Its White Hands By Any Compliances, Comes Into Our Streets And Houses,--only The Pure And Aspiring Can Know Its Face, And The Only Compliment They Can Pay It, Is To Own It.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There Are Many Eyes

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There Are Many Eyes That Can Detect And Honor The Prudent And Household Virtues; There Are Many That Can Discern Genius On His Starry Track, Though The Mob Is Incapable; But When That Love Which Is All-suffering, All-abstaining, All-aspiring, Which Has Vowed To Itself, That It Will Be A Wretch And Also A Fool In This World, Sooner Than Soil Its White Hands By Any Compliances, Comes Into Our Streets And Houses,--only The Pure And Aspiring Can Know Its Face, And The Only Compliment They Can Pay It, Is To Own It.

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I Am Ashamed To See What A Shallow Village Tale Our So-called History Is. How Many Times Must We Say Rome, And Paris, And Constantinople! What Does Rome Know Of Rat And Lizard? What Are Olympiads And Consulates To These Neighboring Systems Of Being? Nay, What Food Or Experience Or Succor Have They For The Esquimaux Seal-hunter, Or The Kanaka In His Canoe, For The Fisherman, The Stevedore, The Porter?

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.

There Is The Illusion Of Time, Which Is Very Deep; Who Has Disposed Of It? Mor Come To The Conviction That What Seems The Succession Of Thought Is Only The Distribution Of Wholes Into Causal Series.

Proverbs, Like The Sacred Books Of Each Nation, Are The Sanctuary Of The Intuitions. That Which The Droning World, Chained To Appearances, Will Not Allow The Realist To Say In His Own Words, It Will Suffer Him To Say In Proverbs Without Contradiction.

In The Fiji Islands, It Appears, Cannibalism Is Now Familiar. They Eat Thier Own Wives And Children. We Only Devour Widows' Houses, And Great Merchants Outwit And Absorb The Substance Of Small Ones, And Every Man Feeds On His Neighbor's Labor If He Can. It Is A Milder Form Of Cannibalism.

The Wise Through Excess Of Wisdom Is Made A Fool.

Only That Is Poetry Which Cleanses And Mans Me.

The Victories Of Character Are Instant, And Victories For All.

We Walk Alone In The World.

The Life Of Labor Does Not Make Men, But Drudges.

Railroad Iron Is A Magician's Rod, In Its Power To Evoke The Sleeping Energies Of Land And Water.

Sickness Is Poor-spirited, And Cannot Serve Anyone; It Must Husband Its Resources To Live. But Health Or Fullness Answers Its Own Ends, And Has To Spare, Runs Over, And Inundates The Neighborhoods And Creeks Of Other Men's Necessities.

The Height Of The Pinnacle Is Determined By The Breadth Of The Base.

We Must Be Very Suspicious Of The Deceptions Of The Element Of Time. It Takes A Good Deal Of Time To Eat Or To Sleep, Or To Earn Ahundred Dollars, And A Very Little Time To Entertain A Hope And An Insight Which Becomes The Light Of Our Life.

The Delicate Muses Lose Their Head If Their Attention Is Once Diverted. Perhaps If You Were Successful Abroad In Talking And Dealing With Men, You Would Not Come Back To Your Bookshelf And Your Task. When The Spirit Chooses You For Its Scribe To Publish Some Commandment, It Makes You Odious To Men And Men Odious To You, And You Shall Accept That Loathsomeness With Joy. The Moth Must Fly To The Lamp, And You Must Solve Those Questions Though You Die.

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

The Ship Of Heaven Guides Itself And Will Not Accept A Wooden Rudder.

You Are Constantly Invited To Be What You Are.

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

Nothing Is More Disgusting Than The Crowing About Liberty By Slaves, As Most Men Are, And The Flippant Mistaking For Freedom Of Some Paper Preamble Like A Declaration Of Independence, Or The Statute Right To Vote, By Those Who Have Never Dared To Think Or To Act.

As I Walked In The Woods I Felt What I Often Feel That Nothing Can Befall Me In Life, No Calamity, No Disgrace (leaving Me My Eyes) To Which Nature Will Not Offer A Sweet Consolation. Standing On The Bare Ground With My Head Bathed By The Blithe Air, & Uplifted Into The Infinite Space, I Become Happy In My Universal Relations. The Name Of The Nearest Friend Sounds Then Foreign & Accidental. I Am The Heir Of Uncontained Beauty And Power.

Universities Are Of Course Hostile To Geniuses, Which, Seeing And Using Ways Of Their Own, Discredit The Routine: As Churches And Monasteries Persecute Youthful Saints.

The Difference Between Talent And Genius Is In The Direction Of The Current: In Genius, It Is From Within Outward; In Talent From Without Inward.

In Daily Life What Distinguishes The Master Is The Using Those Materials He Has, Instead Of Looking About For What Are More Renowned, Or What Others Have Used Well.

The World Is All Gates, All Opportunities, Strings Of Tension Waiting To Be Struck.

Every Chair Should Be A Throne And Hold A King.

Let There Be Worse Cotton And Better Men.

The South-wind Brings Life, Sunshine And Desire, And On Every Mount And Meadow Breathes Aromatic Fire; But Over The Dead He Has No Power, The Lost, The Lost, He Cannot Restore; And, Looking Over The Hills, I Mourn The Darling Who Shall Not Return.

There Is This To Be Said In Favor Of Drinking, That It Takes The Drunkard First Out Of Society, Then Out Of The World.

Tis The Old Secret Of The Gods That They Come In Low Disguises.

I Have Heard That Death Takes Us Away From Ill Things, Not From Good. I Have Heard That When We Pronounce The Name Of Man We Pronounce The Belief Of Immortality.

When We See A Soul Whose Acts Are All Regal, Graceful, And Pleasant As Roses, We Must Thank God That Such Things Can Be And Are.

Nature Never Rhymes Her Children, Nor Makes Two Men Alike. When We See A Great Man, We Fancy A Resemblance To Some Historical Person, And Predict The Sequel Of His Character And Fortune, A Result Which He Is Sure To Disappoint. None Will Ever Solve The Problem Of His Character According To Our Prejudice, But Only In His High Unprecedented Way.

Prayer That Craves A Particular Commodity—anything Less Than All Good, Is Vicious. Prayer Is The Contemplation Of The Facts Of Life From The Highest Point Of View. It Is The Soliloquy Of A Beholding And Jubilant Soul. It Is The Spirit Of God Pronouncing His Works Good. But Prayer As A Means To Effect A Private End Is Theft And Meanness. It Supposes Dualism And Not Unity In Nature And Consciousness. As Soon As The Man Is At One With God, He Will Not Beg.

An Individual Man Is A Fruit Which It Cost All The Foregoing Ages To Form And Ripen. He Is Strong, Not To Do, But To Live; Not In His Arms, But In His Heart; Not As An Agent, But As A Fact.

Poverty, Frost, Famine, Rain, Disease, Are The Beadles And Guardsmen That Hold Us To Common Sense.

The Sun Shines Today Also.

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.

I Have Never Met A Man Who Was Not My Superior In Some Particular.

Scholarship Is To Be Created Not By Compulsion, But By Awakening A Pure Interest In Knowledge.

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

How Shall A Man Escape From His Ancestors, Or Draw Off From His Veins The Black Drop Which He Drew From His Father's Or Mother's Life?

People Say Law But They Mean Wealth.

Daughter Of Time, The Hypocrite Days, Muffled And Dumb Like Barefoot Dervishes, And Marching Single In An Endless File, Bring Diadems And Fagots In Their Hands; To Each They Offer Gifts After His Will, Bread, Kingdom, Stars, And Sky That Holds Them All; I, In My Pleached Garden Watched The Pomp Forgot My Morning Wishes, Hastily Took A Few Herbs And Apples, And The Day Turned And Departed Silent. I Too Late Under Her Solemn Fillet Saw The Scorn.

The Farmer After Sacrificing Pleasure, Taste, Freedom, Thought, Love, To His Work, Turns Out Often A Bankrupt, Like The Merchant.this Result Might Well Seem Astounding. All This Drudgery, From Cockcrowing To Starlight, For All These Years, To End In Mortgages And The Auctioneer's Flag, And Removing From Bad To Worse. It Is Time To Have The Thing Looked Into, And With A Sifting Criticism Ascertained Who Is The Fool.

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

Congratulations

Live, Let Live, And Help Live

Trust Your Instinct To The End, Though You Can Render No Reason.

The Instincts Of The Ant Are Very Unimportant, Considered As The Ants; But The Moment A Ray Of Relation Is Seen To Be A Monitor, A Little Body With A Mighty Heart, Then All Its Habits, Even That Said To Be Recently Observed, That It Never Sleeps, Become Sublime.

Genius Detects Through The Fly, Through The Caterpillar, Through The Grub, Through The Egg, The Constant Individual; Through Countless Individuals The Fixed Species; Through Many Species The Genus; Through All Genera The Steadfast Type; Through All The Kingdoms Of Organized Life The Eternal Unity. Nature Is A Mutable Cloud Which Is Always And Never The Same.

Every Noble Activity Makes Room For Itself.

Intemperance Is The Only Vulgarity.

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.

Infancy Conforms To Nobody: All Conform To It, So That One Babe Commonly Makes Four Or Five Out Of The Adults Who Prattle And Play To It.

Life Is Girt All Round With A Zodiac Of Sciences, The Contributions Of Men Who Have Perished To Add Their Point Of Light To Our Sky. ... These Road-makers On Every Hand Enrich Us. We Must Extend The Area Of Life And Multiply Our Relations. We Are As Much Gainers By Finding A Property In The Old Earth As By Acquiring A New Planet.

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

The Ancestor Of Every Action Is Thought; When We Understand That We Begin To Comprehend That Our World Is Governed By Thought And That Everything Without Had Its Counterpart Originally Within The Mind.

Numbers Serve To Discipline Rhetoric. Without Them It Is Too Easy To Follow Flights Of Fancy, To Ignore The World As It Is And To Remold It Nearer The Heart's Desire.

Finish Each Day And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could. Some Blunders And Absurdities No Doubt Crept In; Forget Them As Soon As You Can. Tomorrow Is A New Day; Begin It Well And Serenely And With Too High A Spirit To Be Encumbered With Your Old Nonsense.

The Beautiful Laws Of Time And Space, Once Dislocated By Our Inaptitude, Are Holes And Dens. If The Hive Be Disturbed By Rash And Stupid Hands, Instead Of Honey, It Will Yield Us Bees.

Little Minds Have Little Worries, Big Minds Have No Time For Worries.

Thoughts Rule The World.

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

If Man Has Good Corn, Or Wood, Or Boards, Or Pigs To Sell, Or Can Make Better Chairs Or Knives, Crucibles, Or Church Organs, Than Anybody Else, You Will Find A Broad, Hard-beaten Road To His House, Though It Be In The Woods.

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

The Longest Wave Is Quickly Lost In The Sea.

Sleep Takes Off The Costume Of Circumstance, Arms Us With Terrible Freedom, So That Every Will Rushes To Deed. A Skillful Man Reads His Dreams For His Self-knowledge; Yet Not The Details, But The Quality. What Part Does He Play In Them - A Cheerful, Manly Part, Or A Poor, Drivelling Part? However Monstrous And Grotesque Their Apparitions, They Have A Substantial Truth.

Liberty Is A Slow Fruit.

The Greatest Meliorator Of The World Is Selfish, Huckstering Trade.

Every Stoic Was A Stoic; But In Christendom Where Is The Christian?

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.

The Secret Of The World Is The Tie Between Person And Event. Person Makes Event And Event Person.

Wit Makes Its Own Welcome, And Levels All Distinctions.

I Believe That Our Own Experience Instructs Us That The Secret Of Education Lies In Respecting The Pupil.

In The Woods, Too, A Man Casts Off His Years, As The Snake His Slough, And At What Period Soever Of Life, Is Always A Child. In The Woods Is Perpetual Youth. Within These Plantations Of God A Decorum And Sanctity Reign, A Perennial Festival Is Dressed, And The Guest Sees Not How He Should Tire Of Them In A Thousand Years. In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

Night-dreams Trace On Memory's Wall Shadows Of The Thoughts Of Day, And Thy Fortunes, As They Fall, The Bias Of The Will Betray.

There Is No Den In The Wide World To Hide A Rogue.

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

When Duty Whispers Low, Thou Must, The Youth Replies, I Can.

The Glory Of Friendship Is Not The Outstretched Hand, Not The Kindly Smile, Nor The Joy Of Companionship; It Is The Spiritual Inspiration That Comes To One When You Discover That Someone Else Believes In You And Is Willing To Trust You With A Friendship.

There Is No Beautifier Of Complexion, Or Form, Or Behavior, Like The Wish To Scatter Joy And Not Pain Around Us.

I Think No Virtue Goes With Size.

As We Grow Old, The Beauty Steals Inward.

A Sturdy Lad From New Hampshire Or Vermont Who In Turn Tries All The Professions, Who Teams It, Farms It, Peddles, Keeps A School,preaches, Edits A Newspaper, Goes To Congress, Buys A Township, And So Forth, In Successive Years, And Always Like A Cat Falls On His Feet, Is Worth A Hundred Of These City Dolls. He Walks Abreast With His Days And Feels No Shame In Not "studying A Profession," For He Does Not Postpone His Life, But Lives Already.

Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But The Triumph Of Principles.

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

After Thirty, A Man Wakes Up Sad Every Morning, Excepting Perhaps Five Or Six, Until The Day Of His Death.

Speak Your Latent Conviction. . . Else Tomorrow A Stranger Will Say With Masterly Good Sense Precisely What We Have Thought And Felt All The Time, And We Shall Be Forced To Take With Shame Our Own Opinion From Another.

Nature Is Good, But Intellect Is Better, As The Law-giver Is Before The Law-receiver.

Half A Man's Wisdom Goes With His Courage.

Men Are Respectable Only As They Respect.

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

You Cannot Do Wrong Without Suffering Wrong.

A Person Seldom Falls Sick But The Bystanders Are Animated With A Faint Hope That He Will Die.

These Are The Voices Which We Hear In Solitude, But They Grow Faint And Inaudible As We Enter Into The World.

It Is A Luxury To Be Understood.

Give All To Love: Obey Thy Heart; Friends, Kindred, Days, Estate, Good Fame, Plans, Credit, And The Muse,- Nothing Refuse.

If You Visit Your Friend, Why Need You Apologize For Not Having Visited Him, And Waste His Time And Deface Your Own Act? Visit Him Now.

It Is Greatest To Believe And To Hope Well Of The World, Because He Who Does So, Quits The World Of Experience, And Makes The World He Lives In.

That You Are Fair Or Wise Is Vain, Or Strong, Or Rich, Or Generous; You Must Have Also The Untaught Strain That Sheds Beauty On The Rose.

Excellence Is The New Forever.

God Hid The Whole World In Thy Heart.

Nature Is The Symbol Of Spirit.

He Who Has Acquired The Ability, May Wait Securely The Occasion Of Making It Felt And Appreciated, And Know That It Will Not Loiter.

If A Man Knows The Law, Find Out, Though He Live In A Pine Shanty, And Resort To Him. And If A Man Can Pipe Or Sing, So As To Wrap The Imprisoned Soul In An Elysium; Or Can Paint A Landscape, And Convey Into Souls And Ochres All The Enchantments Of Spring Or Autumn; Or Can Liberate And Intoxicate All People Who Hear Him With Delicious Songs And Verses; It Is Certain That The Secret Cannot Be Kept; The First Witness Tells It To A Second, And Men Go By Fives And Tens And Fifties To His Doors.

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.

Nature Does Not Cocker Us: We Are Children, Not Pets: She Is Not Fond: Everything Is Dealt To Us Without Fear Or Favor, After Severe Universal Laws.

When A Thought Of Plato Becomes A Thought To Me,--when A Truth That Fired The Soul Of Pindar Fires Mine, Time Is No More. When I Feel That We Two Meet In A Perception, That Our Two Souls Are Tinged With The Same Hue, And Do As It Were Run Into One, Why Should I Measure Degrees Of Latitude, Why Should I Count Egyptian Years?

We Are Rich Only Through What We Give, And Poor Only Through What We Refuse.

There Is A Genius Of A Nation, Which Is Not To Be Found In The Numerical Citizens, But Which Characterizes The Society.

There Is Creative Reading As Well As Creative Writing.

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

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

Five Great Enemies Of Peace Inhabit Us: Avarice, Ambition, Envy, Anger And Pride.

Culture Is The Suggestion, From Certain Best Thoughts, That A Man Has A Range Of Affinities Through Which He Can Modulate The Violence Of Any Master-tones That Have A Droning Preponderance In His Scale, And Succor Him Against Himself. Culture Redresses This Imbalance, Puts Him Among Equals And Superiors, Revives The Delicious Sense Of Sympathy, And Warns Him Of The Dangers Of Solitude And Repulsion.

I Pack My Trunk, Embrace My Friends, Embark On The Sea And At Last Wake Up In Naples, And There Beside Me Is The Stern Fact, The Sad Self, Unrelenting, Identical, That I Fled From.

The One Prudence In Life Is Concentration; The One Evil Is Dissipation: And It Makes No Difference Whether Our Dissipations Are Coarse Or Fine; Property And Its Cares, Friends And A Social Habit, Or Politics, Or Music, Or Feasting. Everything Is Good Which Takes Away One Plaything And Delusion More, And Drives Us Home To Add One Stroke Of Faithful Work.

The Great Object Of Education Should Be Commensurate With The Object Of Life. It Should Be A Moral One; To Teach Self-trust: To Inspire The Youthful Man With An Interest In Himself; With A Curiosity Touching His Own Nature; To Acquaint Him With The Resources Of His Mind, And To Teach Him That There Is All His Strength.

A Man Is What He Thinks About All Day Long.

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.

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.

Every Man Passes His Life In The Search After Friendship.

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?

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.

Nothing Can Work Damage To Me Except Myself; The Harm That I Sustain I Carry About With Me And Never Am A Real Sufferer Except By My Own Fault.

Friendship Requires More Time Than Poor Busy Men Can Usually Command.

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.

Next To The Originator Of A Good Sentence Is The First Quoter Of It. Many Will Read The Book Before One Thinks Of Quoting A Passage. As Soon As He Has Done This, That Line Will Be Quoted East And West.

I Do Then With My Friends As I Do With My Books. I Would Have Them Where I Can Find Them, But I Seldom Use Them.

Our Civility, England Determines The Style Of, Inasmuch As England Is The Strongest Of The Family Of Existing Nations, And As We Are The Expansion Of That People. It Is That Of A Trading Nation; It Is A Shopkeeping Civility. The English Lord Is A Retired Shopkeeper, And Has The Prejudices And Timidities Of That Profession.

A Man In Debt Is So Far A Slave.

Money Often Costs Too Much.

Greatest Wealth

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

The Soul Knows No Persons.

The Order Of Things Consents To Virtue.

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

Nothing Is Quite Beautiful Alone; Nothing But Is Beautiful In The Whole. A Single Object Is Only So Far Beautiful As It Suggests This Universal Grace.

I Have No Hostility To Nature, But A Child's Love To It. I Expand And Live In The Warm Day Like Corn And Melons.

There Is No Way To Success In Art But To Take Off Your Coat, Grind Paint, And Work Like A Digger On The Railroad, All Day And Every Day.

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

Milton Says, That The Lyric Poet May Drink Wine And Live Generously, But The Epic Poet, He Who Shall Sing Of The Gods, And Their Descent Unto Men, Must Drink Water Out Of A Wooden Bowl. For Poetry Is Not "devil's Wine," But God's Wine.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

We Write From Aspiration And Antagonism, As Well As From Experience. We Paint Those Qualities Which We Do Not Posses.

When A Man Becomes A Conformist, He Is Sacrificing The Richness Of Independent Thinking.

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 Relations Of The Soul To The Divine Spirit Are So Pure, That It Is Profane To Seek To Interpose Helps.

We Fly To Beauty As An Asylum From The Terrors Of Finite Nature.

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.

The Chief Mourner Does Not Always Attend The Funeral.

I Admire Answers To Which No Answers Can Be Made.

Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty.

Men Have Come To Speak Of The Revelation As Somewhat Long Ago Given And Done, As If God Were Dead. The Injury To Faith Throttles The Preacher; And The Goodliest Of Institutions Becomes An Uncertain And Inarticulate Voice.

Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit. To A Man Laboring Under Calamity, The Heat Of His Own Fire Hath Sadness In It.

The True Poem Is The Poet's Mind.

What A New Face Courage Puts On Everything!

Cities Force Growth And Make Men Talkative And Entertaining, But They Make Them Artificial. What Possesses Interest For Us Is Thenatural Of Each, His Constitutional Excellence. This Is Forever A Surprise, Engaging And Lovely; We Cannot Be Satiated With Knowing It, And About It; And It Is This Which The Conversation With Nature Cherishes And Guards.

We Might As Easily Reprove The East Wind, Or The Frost, As A Political Party, Whose Members, For The Most Part, Could Give No Account Of Their Position, But Stand For The Defence Of Those Interests In Which They Find Themselves.

The Finished Man Of The World Must Eat Of Every Apple Once.

Nature Has Her Own Best Mode Of Doing Each Thing, And She Has Somewhere Told It Plainly, If We Will Keep Our Eyes And Ears Open. If Not, She Will Not Be Slow In Undeceiving Us, When We Prefer Our Own Way To Hers.

Every Genuine Work Of Art Has As Much Reason For Being As The Earth And The Sun.

Nature Never Sends A Great Man Into The Planet, Without Confiding The Secret To Another Soul.

Art Is A Jealous Mistress; And If A Man Have A Genius For Painting, Poetry, Music, Architecture Or Philosophy, He Makes A Bad Husband And An Ill Provider.

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.

Come, See The North-wind's Masonry, Out Of An Unseen Quarry Evermore Furnished With Tile, The Fierce Artificer Curves His White Bastions With Projected Roof Round Every Windward Stake, Or Tree, Or Door. Speeding, The Myriad-handed, His Wild Work So Fanciful, So Savage, Naught Cares He For Number Or Proportion.

No One Can Cheat You Out Of Ultimate Success But Yourself.

The Imitator Dooms Himself To Hopeless Mediocrity. The Inventor Did It Because It Was Natural To Him, And So In Him It Has A Charm. In The Imitator Something Else Is Natural, And He Bereaves Himself Of His Own Beauty, To Come Short Of Another Man's.

Riding A Horse Is Not A Gentle Hobby, To Be Picked Up And Laid Down Like A Game Of Solitaire. It Is A Grand Passion. It Seizes A Person Whole And Once It Has Done So, He/she Will Have To Accept That His Life Will Be Radically Changed.

Always Do What You Are Afraid To Do.

The World Is A Divine Dream, From Which We May Presently Awake To The Glories And Certainties Of Day.

Nature Abhors The Old.

You Need Not Fear To Handle The Truth Roughly. She Is No Invalid.

The Most Dangerous Thing Is Illusion.

Activity Is Contagious.

If A Man Can Write A Better Book, Preach A Better Sermon, Or Make A Better Mousetrap Than His Neighbor, Though He Build His House In The Woods, The World Will Make A Beaten Path To His Door.

The Poor Are Only They Who Feel Poor.

We Must Not Inquire Too Curiously Into The Absolute Value Of Literature. Enough That It Amuses And Exercises Us. At Least It Leaves Us Where We Were. It Names Things, But Does Not Add Things.

The Lessons Of Science Should Be Experimental Also. The Sight Of A Planet Through A Telescope Is Worth All The Course On Astronomy; The Shock Of The Electric Spark In The Elbow Outvalues All Theories; The Taste Of The Nitrous Oxide, The Firing Of An Artificial Volcano, Are Better Than Volumes Of Chemistry.

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

God Will Have Life To Be Real; We Will Be Damned, But It Shall Be Theatrical.

The Objection To Conforming To Usages That Have Become Dead To You Is, That It Scatters Your Force.

No Reason Can Be Asked Or Given Why The Soul Seeks Beauty. Beauty, In Its Largest And Profoundest Sense, Is One Expression For The Universe. God Is The All-fair. Truth, And Goodness, And Beauty, Are But Different Faces Of The Same All.

Different Faces

I Hate The Giving Of The Hand Unless The Whole Man Accompanies It.

Eloquence Must Be Grounded On The Plainest Narrative.

A Great Part Of Courage Is The Courage Of Having Done The Thing Before.

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.

General Ideas Are Essences. They Are Our Gods: They Round And Ennoble The Most Partial And Sordid Way Of Living.

He That Can Heroically Endure Adversity Will Bear Prosperity With Equal Greatest Of The Soul; For The Mind That Cannot Be Dejected By The Former Is Not Likely To Be Transported Without The Latter.

Man Is The End Of Nature; Nothing So Easily Organizes Itself In Every Part Of The Universe As He; No Moss, No Lichen Is So Easilyborn; And He Takes Along With Him And Puts Out From Himself The Whole Apparatus Of Society And Condition Extempore, As An Army Encamps In A Desert, And Where All Was Just Now Blowing Sand, Creates A White City In An Hour, A Government, A Market, A Place For Feasting, For Conversation, And For Love.

Action Is With The Scholar Subordinate, But It Is Essential. Without It, He Is Not Yet Man. Without It, Thought Can Never Ripen Into Truth.

Religion Is As Effectively Destroyed By Bigotry As By Indifference.

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.

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

Men Grind And Grind In The Mill Of A Truism, And Nothing Comes Out But What Was Put In. But The Moment They Desert The Tradition For A Spontaneous Thought, Then Poetry, Wit, Hope, Virtue, Learning, Anecdote, And All Flock To Their Aid.

When Summer Opens, I See How Fast It Matures, And Fear It Will Be Short; But After The Heats Of July And August, I Am Reconciled, Like One Who Has Had His Swing, To The Cool Of Autumn.

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

Nothing Is More Simple Than Greatness; Indeed, To Be Simple Is To Be Great.

The Way To Write Is To Throw Your Body At The Mark When Your Arrows Are Spent.

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

Most Of The Great Results Of History Are Brought About By Discreditable Means.

She Shows Us Only Surfaces, But She Is Million-fathoms Deep.

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