Background Image

...

There Are Many Faculties In Man, Each Of Which Takes Its Turn Of Activity, And That Faculty Which Is Paramount In Any Period And Exerts Itself Through The Strongest Nation, Determines The Civility Of That Age: And Each Age Thinks Its Own The Perfection Of Reason.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

There Are Many Faculties

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

There Are Many Faculties In Man, Each Of Which Takes Its Turn Of Activity, And That Faculty Which Is Paramount In Any Period And Exerts Itself Through The Strongest Nation, Determines The Civility Of That Age: And Each Age Thinks Its Own The Perfection Of Reason.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

You've Got To Be Taught To Be Afraid Of People Whose Eyes Are Oddly Made And People Whose Skin Is A Different Shade.

In Conversation The Game Is, To Say Something New With Old Words. And You Shall Observe A Man Of The People Picking His Way Along, Step By Step, Using Every Time An Old Boulder, Yet Never Setting His Foot On An Old Place.

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

Nothing Is At Last Sacred But The Integrity Of Your Own Mind.

Dear To Us Are Those Who Love Us... But Dearer Are Those Who Reject Us As Unworthy, For They Add Another Life; They Build A Heaven Before Us Whereof We Had Not Dreamed, And Thereby Supply To Us New Powers Out Of The Recesses Of The Spirit, And Urge Us To New And Unattempted Performances.

The Man Of Genius Inspires Us With A Boundless Confidence In Our Own Powers.

All My Best Thoughts Were Stolen By The Ancients.

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies.

Lose Yourself In Nature And Find Peace

The Foolish Man Wonders At The Unusual, But The Wise Man At The Usual.

Romeo, Of Dead, Should Be Cut Up Into Little Stars To Make The Heavens Fine. Life, With This Pair, Has No Other Aim, Asks No More,than Juliet,--than Romeo.

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.

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.

There Is Nothing Settled In Manners, But The Laws Of Behavior Yield To The Energy Of The Individual.

We Estimate The Wisdom Of Nations By Seeing What They Did With Their Surplus Capital.

I Find Nothing Healthful Or Exalting In The Smooth Conventions Of Society. I Do Not Like The Close Air Of Saloons. I Begin To Suspect Myself To Be A Prisoner, Though Treated With All This Courtesy And Luxury. I Pay A Destructive Tax In My Conformity.

Tis Curious That We Only Believe As Deeply As We Live.

What A Benefit Would The American Government, Not Yet Relieved Of Its Extreme Need, Render To Itself, And To Every City, Village And Hamlet In The States, If It Would Tax Whiskey And Rum Almost To The Point Of Prohibition! Was It Bonaparte Who Said That He Found Vices Very Good Patriots? "he Got Five Millions From The Love Of Brandy, And He Should Be Glad To Know Which Of The Virtues Would Pay Him As Much." Tobacco And Opium Have Broad Backs, And Will Cheerfully Carry The Load Of Armies, If You Choose To Make Them Pay High For Such Joy As They Give And Such Harm As They Do.

Nature Is Methodical, And Doeth Her Work Well. Time Is Never To Be Hurried.

It Is So Wonderful To Our Neurologists That A Man Can See Without His Eyes, That It Does Not Occur To Them That Is Just As Wonderful That He Should See With Them; And That Is Ever The Difference Between The Wise And The Unwise: The Latter Wonders At What Is Unusual, The Wise Man Wonders At The Usual.

In The Vaunted Works Of Art, The Master-stroke Is Nature's Part.

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.

He Presents Me With What Is Always An Acceptable Gift Who Brings Me News Of A Great Thought Before Unknown. He Enriches Me Without Impoverishing Himself.

There Is A Capacity Of Virtue In Us, And There Is A Capacity Of Vice To Make Your Blood Creep.

The End Of Being Is To Know; And If You Say, The End Of Knowledge Is Action,-why, Yes, But The End Of That Action Again, Is Knowledge.

What You Set Your Heart Upon, Surely Shall Be Yours.

Experience Is The Only Teacher, And We Get His Lesson Indifferently In Any School.

Fear Is An Instructor Of Great Sagacity, And The Herald Of All Revolutions.

The Life Of Man Is A Self-evolving Circle.

If You Would Learn To Write, It Is In The Street You Must Learn It. Both For The Vehicle And For The Aims Of Fine Arts, You Must Frequent The Public Square. The People, And Not The College, Is The Writer's Home. A Scholar Is A Candle Which The Love And Desire Of All Men Will Light.

People Are Timid And Apologetic; They Are No Longer Upright; They Dare Not Say "i Think," "i Am," But Quote Some Saint Or Sage. They Are Ashamed Before The Blade Of Grass Or The Blowing Rose. These Roses Under My Window Make No Reference To Former Roses Or To Better Ones; They Are For What They Are; They Exist With God To-day.

Always The Seer Is A Sayer. Somehow His Dream Is Told; Somehow He Publishes It With Solemn Joy: Sometimes With Pencil On Canvas, Sometimes With Chisel On Stone, Sometimes In Towers And Aisles Of Granite, His Soul's Worship Is Builded; Sometimes In Anthems Of Indefinite Music, But Clearest And Most Permanent, In Words.

The Magnanimous Know Very Well That They Who Give Time, Or Money, Or Shelter, To The Stranger--so It Be Done For Love, And Not Forostentation--do, As It Were, Put God Under Obligation To Them, So Perfect Are The Compensations Of The Universe.

The Soul Is No Traveller; The Wise Man Stays At Home, And When His Necessities, His Duties, On Any Occasion Call Him From His House, Or Into Foreign Lands, He Is At Home Still, And Shall Make Men Sensible By The Expression Of His Countenance, That He Goes The Missionary Of Wisdom And Virtue, And Visits Cities And Men Like A Sovereign, And Not Like An Interloper Or A Valet.

Intellectual Tasting Of Life Will Not Supersede Muscular Activity. If A Man Should Consider The Nicety Of The Passage Of A Piece Of Bread Down His Throat, He Would Starve.

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.

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.

Peace Cannot Be Achieved Through Violence, It Can Only Be Attained Through Understanding.

I Like People Who Can Do Things

We Are Immersed In Beauty, But Our Eyes Have No Clear Vision.

Nature Is What You May Do. There Is Much You May Not Do.

At The Gates Of The Forest, The Surprised Man Of The World Is Forced To Leave His City Estimates Of Great And Small, Wise And Foolish.

Every Day Brings A Ship, Every Ship Brings A Word; Well For Those Who Have No Fear, Looking Seaward Well Assured That The Word The Vessel Brings Is The Word They Wish To Hear.

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

The Horseman Serves The Horse, The Neat-herd Serves The Neat, The Merchant Serves The Purse, The Eater Serves His Meat; 'tis The Day Of The Chattel, Web To Weave, And Corn To Grind, Things Are In The Saddle, And Ride Mankind.

Nature Is Upheld By Antagonism.

I Am Present At The Sowing Of The Seed Of The World. With A Geometry Of Sunbeams, The Soul Lays The Foundations Of Nature.

Machinery Is Aggressive. The Weaver Becomes A Web, The Machinist A Machine. If You Do Not Use The Tools, They Use You. All Tools Are In One Sense Edge-tools, And Dangerous.

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

If You Cannot Be Free Be As Free As You Can.

Go Out Of The House To See The Moon, And 't Is Mere Tinsel; It Will Not Please As When Its Light Shines Upon Your Necessary Journey. The Beauty That Shimmers In The Yellow Afternoons Of October, Who Could Ever Clutch It? Go Forth To Find It, And It Is Gone: 't Is Only A Mirage As You Look From The Windows Of Diligence.

Love Of Beauty Is Taste. The Creation Of Beauty Is Art.

Whatever Is Old Corrupts, And The Past Turns To Snakes.

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.

Insist On Your Life, Never Imitate... Do That Which Is Assigned To You, And You Cannot Hope Too Much Or Dare Too Much.

Nothing Can Bring You Happiness But Yourself Especially How You Choose To Think About Your Situation.

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

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

I Like The Silent Church Before The Service Begins, Better Than Any Preaching.

We Are Imprisoned In Life In The Company Of Persons Powerfully Unlike Us.

Power Is The First Good.

The Finest Poems Of The World Have Been Expedients To Get Bread.

But It Is Impossible That The Creative Power Should Exclude Itself. Into Every Intelligence There Is A Door Which Is Never Closed,through Which The Creator Passes.

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

He Who Would Be A Great Soul In The Future, Must Be A Great Soul Now.

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?

What Is Man Born For But To Be A Reformer, A Remaker Of What Man Has Made? A Renouncer Of Lies; A Restorer Of Truth And Good? Imitating That Great Nature Which Embossoms Us All, And Which Sleeps No Moment On An Old Past, But Every Hour Repairs Herself, Yielding Us Every Morning A New Day, With Every Breath A New Life?

The Primary Wisdom Is Intuition.

The Force Of Character Is Cumulative.

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.

Expediency Of Literature, Reason Of Literature, Lawfulness Of Writing Down A Thought, Is Questioned; Much Is To Say On Both Sides,and, While The Fight Waxes Hot, Thou, Dearest Scholar, Stick To Thy Foolish Task, Add A Line Every Hour, And Between Whiles Add A Line.

Women, As Most Susceptible, Are The Best Index Of The Coming Hour.

Out Of Sleeping A Waking, Out Of Waking A Sleep.

Society Is Infested By Persons Who, Seeing That The Sentiments Please, Counterfeit The Expression Of Them. These We Call Sentimentalists - Talkers Who Mistake The Description For The Thing, Saying For Having.

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.

We Teach Boys To Be Such Men As We Are. We Do Not Teach Them To Aspire To Be All They Can. We Do Not Give Them A Training As If Webelieved In Their Noble Nature. We Scarce Educate Their Bodies. We Do Not Train The Eye And The Hand. We Exercise Their Understandings To The Apprehension And Comparison Of Some Facts, To A Skill In Numbers, In Words; We Aim To Make Accountants, Attorneys, Engineers; But Not To Make Able, Earnest, Great- Hearted Men.

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.

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.

Literature Is Eavesdropping.

Solitude Is Naught And Society Is Naught. Alternate Them And The Good Of Each Is Seen.

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

Philanthropies And Charities Have A Certain Air Of Quackery.

In Analysing History Do Not Be Too Profound, For Often The Causes Are Quite Superficial.

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.

The Scholar May Lose Himself In Schools, In Words, And Become A Pedant; But When He Comprehends His Duties, He Above All Men Is Arealist, And Converses With Things.

This Body, Full Of Faults, Has Yet One Great Quality: Whatever It Encounters In This Temporal Life Depends Upon One's Actions.

Things Are Pretty, Graceful, Rich, Elegant, Handsome, But, Until They Speak To The Imagination, Not Yet Beautiful.

The Imitator Dooms Himself To Hopeless Mediocrity.

I Think I Have Done Well, If I Have Acquired A New Word From A Good Author; And My Business With Him Is To Find My Own, Though Itwere Only To Melt Him Down Into An Epithet Or An Image For Daily Use.

Things Refuse To Be Mismanaged For Long.

Science, Nature,-o, I've Yearned To Open Some Page.

A Wise Writer Will Feel That The Ends Of Study And Composition Are Best Answered By Announcing Undiscovered Regions Of Thought, And So Communicating, Through Hope, New Activity To The Torpid Spirit.

In Our Mechanics' Fair, There Must Be Not Only Bridges, Ploughs, Carpenter's Planes, And Baking Troughs, But Also Some Few Finer Instruments,--rain-gauges, Thermometers, And Telescopes; And In Society, Besides Farmers, Sailors, And Weavers, There Must Be A Few Persons Of Purer Fire Kept Specially As Gauges And Meters Of Character; Persons Of A Fine, Detecting Instinct, Who Note The Smallest Accumulations Of Wit And Feeling In The Bystander.

Consider What You Have In The Smallest Well-chosen Library-a Company Of The Wisest And Wittiest Men Which Can Be Plucked Out Of All Civilized Countries In A Thousand Years. The Men Themselves Were Then Hidden And Inaccessible. They Were Solitary, Impatient Of Interruption, And Fenced By Etiquette. But Now They Are Immortal, And The Thought They Did Not Reveal, Even To Their Bosom Friends, Is Here Written Out In Transparent Words Of Light To Us, Who Are Strangers Of Another Age.

All Persons Are Puzzles Until At Last We Find In Some Word Or Act The Key To The Man, To The Woman; Straightway All Their Past Words And Actions Lie In Light Before Us.

Whence, Then, This Worship Of The Past? The Centuries Are Conspirators Against The Sanity And Authority Of The Soul.

Throughout The Ages There Have Always Been Those Who Have Been Willing To Go Beyond The Norms And Reach For That Unknown And Distant Star.

The Americans Have Many Virtues, But They Have Not Faith And Hope. I Know No Two Words Whose Meaning Is More Lost Sight Of.

The Virtue Of Books Is To Be Readable.

No Man Should Travel Until He Has Learned The Language Of The Country He Visits. Otherwise He Voluntarily Makes Himself A Great Baby - So Helpless And So Ridiculous.

The Shot Heard Round The World.

Revolutionary War

Augusta National

April And Spring

Always Scorn Appearances And You Always May.

The Book Of Nature Is The Book Of Fate. She Turns The Gigantic Pages, Leaf After Leaf Never Returning One.

New York Is A Sucked Orange.

For Splendor, There Must Somewhere Be Rigid Economy. That The Head Of The House May Go Brave, The Members Must Be Plainly Clad, And The Town Must Save That The State May Spend.

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

The Highest Virtue Is Always Against The Law.

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.

There Is No Architect Can Build As The Muse Can; She Is Skilful To Select Materials For Her Plan.

I Honor Health As The First Muse, And Sleep As The Condition Of Health. Sleep Benefits Mainly By The Sound Health It Produces; Incidentally Also By Dreams, Into Whose Farrago A Divine Lesson Is Sometimes Slipped.

An Orator Or Author Is Never Successful Till He Has Learned To Make His Words Smaller Than His Ideas.

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?

Behind Every Individual Closes Organization; Before Him Opens Liberty,--the Better, The Best. The First And Worse Races Are Dead.the Second And Imperfect Races Are Dying Out, Or Remain For The Maturing Of The Higher. In The Latest Race, In Man, Every Generosity, Every New Perception, The Love And Praise He Extorts From His Fellows, Are Certificates Of Advance Out Of Fate Into Freedom.

A Work Of Art Is An Abstract Or Epitome Of The World. It Is The Result Or Expression Of Nature, In Miniature. For, Although The Works Of Nature Are Innumerable And All Different, The Result Or The Expression Of Them All Is Similar And Single.

We Gain The Strength Of The Temptation We Resist.

It Is Not An Arbitrary "decree Of God," But In The Nature Of Man, That A Veil Shuts Down On The Facts Of To-morrow; For The Soul Will Not Have Us Read Any Other Cipher Than That Of Cause And Effect. By This Veil, Which Curtains Events, It Instructs The Children Of Men To Live In To-day.

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

None Believeth In The Soul Of Man, But Only In Some Man Or Person Old And Departed.

In Art, The Hand Can Never Execute Anything Higher Than The Heart Can Imagine.

There Is A Tendency For Things To Right Themselves.

There Is A Crack In Everything God Has Made

Genius Has Infused Itself Into Nature. It Indicates Itself By A Small Excess Of Good, A Small Balance In Brute Facts Always Favorable To The Side Of Reason.

We Are Always Getting Ready To Live, But Never Living... The Wave Moves Onward But The Particles Of Which It Is Composed Do Not... It Cannot Be But That At Intervals Throughout Society There Are Real Men Intermixed . . . As The Carpenter Puts One Iron Bar In His Bannister For Every Five Or Six Wooden Ones.

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

Washington, Where An Insignificant Individual May Trespass On A Nation's Time.

Ah, If The Rich Were Rich As The Poor Fancy Riches.

The Book, The College, The School Of Art, The Institution Of Any Kind, Stop With Some Past Utterance Of Genius. . . . They Look Backward And Not Forward. But Genius Looks Forward: The Eyes Of Man Are Set In His Forehead, Not In His Hindhead: Man Hopes: Genius Creates. Whatever Talents May Be, If The Man Create Not, The Pure Efflux Of The Deity Is Not His; - Cinders And Smoke There May Be, But Not Yet Flame.

Who Leaves The Pine-tree, Leaves His Friend, Unnerves His Strength, Invites His End.

Savages Cling To A Local God Of One Tribe Or Town. The Broad Ethics Of Jesus Were Quickly Narrowed To Village Theologies, Which Preach An Election Or Favoritism.

We Find In Life Exactly What We Put Into It

The Exceptional Life Depends Not On Working Harder, But On Different, Even Opposite, Actions From Habit And The Crowd.

Nature Magically Suits A Man To His Fortunes, By Making Them The Fruit Of His Character.

The Street Is Full Of Humiliations To The Proud.

Self Trust Is The Essence Of Heroism.

He Who Is In Love Is Wise And Is Becoming Wiser.

Our First Mistake Is The Belief That The Circumstance Gives The Joy Which We Give To The Circumstance.

Our Housekeeping Is Mendicant, Our Arts, Our Occupations, Our Marriages, Our Religion We Have Not Chosen But Society Has Chosen For Us.

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.

A Garden Has This Advantage, That It Makes It Indifferent Where You Live. A Well-laid Garden Makes The Face Of The Country Of No Account; Let That Be Low Or High, Grand Or Mean, You Have Made A Beautiful Abode Worthy Of Man.

Men Imagine That They Communicate Their Virtue Or Vice Only By Overt Actions, And Do Not See That Virtue Or Vice Emit A Breath Every Moment.

The Great Majority Of Men Are Bundles Of Beginnings

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

Each Man Has His Own Vocation. The Talent Is The Call. There Is One Direction In Which All Space Is Open To Him. He Has Faculties Silently Inviting Him Thither To Endless Exertion. He Is Like A Ship In The River; He Runs Against Obstructions On Every Side But One; On That Side All Obstruction Is Taken Away, And He Sweeps Serenely Over A Deepening Channel Into An Infinite Sea.

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

Science Is Nothing But The Finding Of Analogy, Identity, In The Most Remote Parts.

The Revelation Of Thought Takes Men Out Of Servitude Into Freedom.

Men Admire The Man Who Can Organize Their Wishes And Thoughts In Stone And Wood And Steel And Brass.

What Strength Belongs To Every Plant And Animal In Nature. The Tree Or The Brook Has No Duplicity, No Pretentiousness, No Show. It Is, With All Its Might And Main, What It Is, And Makes One And The Same Impression And Effect At All Times. All The Thoughts Of A Turtle Are Turtle's, And Of A Rabbit, Rabbit's. But A Man Is Broken And Dissipated By The Giddiness Of His Will; He Does Not Throw Himself Into His Judgments; His Genius Leads Him One Way But 't Is Likely His Trade Or Politics In Quite Another.

Yet America Is A Poem In Our Eyes; Its Ample Geography Dazzles The Imagination, And It Will Not Wait Long For Metres.

The Gates Of Thought, - How Slow And Late They Discover Themselves! Yet When They Appear, We See That They Were Always There, Always Open.

Nature Is Upheld By Antagonism. Passions, Resistance, Danger, Are Educators. We Acquire The Strength We Have Overcome.

The Best Lightning Rod For Your Protection Is Your Own Spine.

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.

There Was Never Anything That Did Not Proceed From A Thought.

Grow Angry Slowly - There's Plenty Of Time.

We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Power Of Thoughts.

Power Of Thought

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.

Therefore All Just Persons Are Satisfied With Their Own Praise. They Refuse To Explain Themselves, And Are Content That New Actions Should Do Them That Office. They Believe That We Communicate Without Speech, And Above Speech, And That No Right Action Of Ours Is Quite Unaffecting To Our Friends, At Whatever Distance; For The Influence Of Action Is Not To Be Measured By Miles.

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.

People That Seem So Glorious Are All Show; Underneath They Are Like Everyone Else.

By Persisting In Your Path, Though You Forfeit The Little, You Gain The Great.

We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Powers Of Thought. Whence Came All These Tools, Inventions, Book Laws, Parties, Kingdoms? Out Of The Invisible World, Through A Few Brains. The Arts And Institutions Of Men Are Created Out Of Thought. The Powers That Make The Capitalist Are Metaphysical, The Force Of Method And Force Of Will Makes Trade, And Builds Towns.

We Love Force And We Care Very Little How It Is Exhibited.

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

Let Me Never Fall Into The Vulgar Mistake Of Dreaming That I Am Persecuted Whenever I Am Contradicted.

Be An Opener Of Doors

A Forte Always Makes A Foible.

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.

At Present, Man Applies To Nature But Half His Force. He Works On The World With His Understanding Alone. He Lives In It, And Masters It By A Penny-wisdom; And He That Works Most In It, Is But A Half-man, And Whilst His Arms Are Strong And His Digestion Good, His Mind Is Imbruted, And He Is A Selfish Savage.

For Everything You Have Missed, You Have Gained Something Else, And For Everything You Gain, You Lose Something Else.

Enlarge Not Thy Destiny, Said The Oracle: Endeavor Not To Do More Than Is Given Thee In Charge.

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.

All Public Facts Are To Be Individualized, All Private Facts Are To Be Generalized.

The Greater Speed And Success That Distinguish The Planting Of The Human Race In This Country, Over All Other Plantations In History, Owe Themselves Mainly To The New Subdivisions Of The State Into Small Corporations Of Land And Power.

It Is Better To Be A Thorn In The Side Of A Friend Than An Echo.

Build A Better Mousetrap And The World Will Beat A Path To Your Door.

When We Attempt To Define And Describe God, Both Language And Thought Desert Us, And We Are As Helpless As Fools And Savages.

All That Adam Had, All That Caesar Could, You Have And Can Do.... Build, Therefore, Your Own World.

Sanity Is Very Rare; Every Man Almost And Every Woman Has A Dash Of Madness.

Intellect Is Void Of Affection And Sees An Object As It Stands In The Light Of Science, Cool And Disengaged. The Intellect Goes Out Of The Individual, Floats Over Its Own Personality, And Regards It As A Fact, And Not As I And Mine.

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

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

Of All Tools, An Observatory Is The Most Sublime. . . . What Is So Good In A College As An Observatory? The Sublime Attaches To The Door And To The First Stair You Ascent, That This Is The Road To The Stars.

But A Public Oration Is An Escapade, A Non-committal, An Apology, A Gag, And Not A Communication, Not A Speech, Not A Man.

All Great Masters Are Chiefly Distinguished By The Power Of Adding A Second, A Third, And Perhaps A Fourth Step In A Continuous Line. Many A Man Has Taken The First Step. With Every Additional Step You Enhance Immensely The Value Of Your First.

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

Every Known Fact In Natural Science Was Divined By The Presentiment Of Somebody, Before It Was Actually Verified.

Native American

Give All To Love; Obey Thy Heart.

A Sage Is The Instructor Of A Hundred Ages.

Give No Bounties: Make Equal Laws: Secure Life And Prosperity And You Need Not Give Alms.

Every Reform Was Once A Private Opinion.

Obedience Alone Gives The Right To Command.

Talent Alone Cannot Make A Writer. There Must Be A Man Behind The Book.

It Is The Fault Of Our Rhetoric That We Cannot Strongly State One Fact Without Seeming To Belie Some Other.

History No Longer Shall Be A Dull Book. It Shall Walk Incarnate In Every Just And Wise Man. You Shall Not Tell Me By Language And Titles A Catalogue Of The Volumes You Have Read. You Shall Make Me Feel What Periods You Have Lived.

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

Others Can Get In Your Way Temporarily, But Only You Can Get Out Of Your Way Permanently. Our Best Thoughts Come From Others.

All History Is The Decline Of War, Though The Slow Decline. All That Society Has Yet Gained Is Mitigation; The Doctrine Of The Right Of War Still Remains.

The Poem Is A Confession Of Faith.

Trending Author

Category