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There Can Be No Excess To Love, None To Knowledge, None To Beauty.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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There Can Be No

Ralph Waldo Emerson
...
There Can Be No Excess To Love, None To Knowledge, None To Beauty.

Understanding the Quote: "there can be no excess to love, none to knowledge, none to..."

This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects deeply on the theme of excess. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Excess, Edges, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Ralph Waldo Emerson interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson is celebrated for insightful thoughts on excess and edges. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Excess
Edges
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If There Be Any Man Who Thinks The Ruin Of A Race Of Men A Small Matter, Compared With The Last Decoration And Completions Of Hisown Comfort,--who Would Not So Much As Part With His Ice- Cream, To Save Them From Rapine And Manacles, I Think I Must Not Hesitate To Satisfy That Man That Also His Cream And Vanilla Are Safer And Cheaper By Placing The Negro Nation On A Fair Footing Than By Robbing Them.
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For Poetry Was All Written Before Time Was, And Whenever We Are So Finely Organized That We Can Penetrate Into That Region Where The Air Is Music, We Hear Those Primal Warblings, And Attempt To Write Them Down, But We Lose Ever And Anon A Word, A Verse, And Substitute Something Of Our Own, And Thus Miswrite The Poem.
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You Cannot Make A Cheap Palace.
Palaces
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We Sometimes Meet An Original Gentleman, Who, If Manners Had Not Existed, Would Have Invented Them.
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So . . . I Feel In Regard To This Aged England . . . Pressed Upon By Transitions Of Trade And . . . Competing Populations,-i See Her Not Dispirited, Not Weak, But Well Remembering That She Has Seen Dark Days Before;-indeed, With A Kind Of Instinct That She Sees A Little Better In A Cloudy Day, And That, In Storm Of Battle And Calamity, She Has A Secret Vigor And A Pulse Like A Cannon.
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If It Costs Ten Years, And Ten To Recover The General Prosperity, The Destruction Of The South Is Worth So Much.
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The Nonchalance Of Boys Who Are Sure Of A Dinner, And Would Disdain As Much As A Lord To Do Or Say Aught To Conciliate One, Is The Healthy Attitude Of Human Nature.
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Every Noble Activity Makes Room For Itself.
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There Is One Topic Peremptorily Forbidden To All Well-bred, To All Rational Mortals, Namely, Their Distempers.
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One Lesson We Learn Early, That In Spite Of Seeming Difference, Men Are All Of One Pattern. We Readily Assume This With Our Mates, And Are Disappointed And Angry If We Find That We Are Premature, And That Their Watches Are Slower Than Ours. In Fact, The Only Sin Which We Never Forgive In Each Other Is Difference Of Opinion.
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The Artist Always Has The Masters In His Eyes.
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The Soul Refuses Limits And Always Affirms An Optimism, Never A Pessimism.
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It Is The Fine Souls Who Serve Us, And Not What Is Called Fine Society. Fine Society Is Only A Self-protection Against The Vulgarities Of The Street And The Tavern.
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Plant Your Dreams And Miracles Will Grow.
Dream
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Thy Dangerous Glances Make Women Of Men; New-born, We Are Melting Into Nature Again.
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The Masters Painted For Joy, And Knew Not That Virtue Had Gone Out Of Them. They Could Not Paint The Like In Cold Blood. The Masters Of English Lyric Wrote Their Songs So. It Was A Fine Efflorescence Of Fine Powers.
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The Walking Of Man Is Falling Forwards.
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All Successful Men Have Agreed In One Thing -- They Were Causationists. They Believed That Things Went Not By Luck, But By Law; That There Was Not A Weak Or A Cracked Link In The Chain That Joins The First And Last Of Things.
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Pain Is Superficial, And Therefore Fear Is. The Torments Of Martyrdoms Are Probably Most Keenly Felt By The By-standers.
Fear
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We Begin With Friendships, And All Our Youth Is A Reconnoitering And Recruiting Of The Holy Fraternity They Shall Combine For Thesalvation Of Men. But So The Remoter Stars Seem A Nebula Of United Light, Yet There Is No Group Which A Telescope Will Not Resolve; And The Dearest Friends Are Separated By Impassable Gulfs.
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Man Begins Life Helpless. The Babe Is In Paroxysms Of Fear The Moment Its Nurse Leaves It Alone, And It Comes So Slowly To Any Power Of Self-protection That Mothers Say The Salvation Of The Life And Health Of A Young Child Is A Perpetual Miracle.
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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.
Dog
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It Is Dainty To Be Sick If You Have Leisure And Convenience For It.
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We Stand Against Fate, As Children Stand Up Against The Wall In Their Father's House, And Notch Their Height From Year To Year. But When The Boy Grows To A Man, And Is Master Of The House, He Pulls Down That Wall And Builds It New And Bigger.
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Knowledge Is The Only Elegance.
Art
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The Democrat Is A Young Conservative; The Conservative Is An Old Democrat. The Aristocrat Is The Democrat Ripe, And Gone To Seed,--because Both Parties Stand On The One Ground Of The Supreme Value Of Property, Which One Endeavors To Get, And The Other To Keep.
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No Man Thoroughly Understands A Truth Until He Has Contended Against It.
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Men
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All Things Are Flowing, Even Those That Seem Immovable. The Adamant Is Always Passing Into Smoke. The Plants Imbibe The Materialswhich They Want From The Air And The Ground. They Burn, That Is, Exhale And Decompose Their Own Bodies Into The Air And Earth Again. The Animal Burns, Or Undergoes The Like Perpetual Consumption. The Earth Burns, The Mountains Burn And Decompose, Slower, But Incessantly.
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If A Man Lose His Balance, And Immerse Himself In Any Trades Or Pleasures For Their Own Sake, He May Be A Good Wheel Or Pin, But He Is Not A Cultivated Man.
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The Gentleman Is A Man Of Truth, Lord Of His Own Actions, And Expressing That Lordship In His Behavior, Not In Any Manner Dependent And Servile Either On Persons, Or Opinions, Or Possessions.
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No Facts To Me Are Sacred; None Are Profane.
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When The Spirit Is Not Master Of The World, Then It Is Its Dupe.
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The Genius Of Reading And Of Gardening Are Antagonistic, Like Resinous And Vitreous Electricity. One Is Concentrative In Sparks And Shocks: The Other Is Diffuse Strength; So That Each Disqualifies Its Workman For The Other's Duties.
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The Next Best Thing To Saying A Good Thing Yourself Is To Quote One.
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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.
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Everything Good Is On The Highway.
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It Is One Of The Biggest Blessing That You Can Be Stupid With Your True Friends And Behave Like You Shame To Do Elsewhere
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"in The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith. There I Feel That Nothing Can Befall Me In Life~~no Disgrace, No Calamity (leaving Me My Eyes), Which Nature Cannot Repair."
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Far Off, Men Swell, Bully, And Threaten; Bring Them Hand To Hand, And They Are Feeble Folk.
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Never Lose An Opportunity To See Anything That Is Beautiful. It Is God's Handwriting A Wayside Sacrament. Welcome It In Every Fair Face, Every Fair Sky, Every Fair Flower.
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Nothing Is Secure But Life, Transition, The Energizing Spirit.
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Wouldst Thou Shut Up The Avenues Of Ill, Pay Every Debt As If God Wrote The Bill.
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In America And Europe, The Nomadism Is Of Trade And Curiosity.
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Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit. To A Man Laboring Under Calamity, The Heat Of His Own Fire Hath Sadness In It.
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The Civilized Man Has Built A Coach, But Has Lost The Use Of His Feet.
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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.
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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.
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When God Lets Loose A Great Thinker On This Planet, Then All Things Are At Risk. There Is Not A Piece Of Science But Its Flank May Be Turned To-morrow; Nor Any Literary Reputation Or The So-called Eternal Names Of Fame That Many Not Be Refused And Condemned.
Names
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We May Climb Into The Thin And Cold Realm Of Pure Geometry And Lifeless Science, Or Sink Into That Of Sensation. Between These Extremes Is The Equator Of Life, Of Thought, Or Spirit, Or Poetry,--a Narrow Belt.
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We Are Not Very Much To Blame For Our Bad Marriages. We Live Amid Hallucinations, And Especial Trap Is Laid To Trip Up Our Feet With, And All Are Tripped Up First Or Last. But The Mighty Mother, Who Had Been So Sly With Us, As If She Felt She Owed Us Some Indemnity, Insinuates Into The Pandora Box Of Marriage Some Deep And Serious Benefits, And Some Great Joys.
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I Think No Virtue Goes With Size;the Reason Of All Cowardiceis, That Men Are Overgrown,and, To Be Valiant, Must Come Downto The Titmouse Dimension.
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Of The Shaker Society, It Was Formerly A Sort Of Proverb In The Country, That They Always Sent The Devil To Market.
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Some Men, At The Approach Of A Dispute, Neigh Like Horses.
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It Seems To Be A Rule Of Wisdom Never To Rely On Your Memory Alone, Scarcely Even In Acts Of Pure Memory, But To Bring The Past For Judgment Into The Thousand-eyed Present, And Live Ever In A New Day.
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Commerce Is Of Trivial Import; Love, Faith, Truth Of Character, The Aspiration Of Man, These Are Sacred.
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The Word Unto The Prophet Spoken Was Writ On Tablets Yet Unbroken: The Word By Seers Or Sibyls Told, In Groves Of Oak Or Fanes Of Gold, Still Floats Upon The Morning Wind, Still Whispers To The Willing Mind.
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Wind
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Let Me Admonish You, First Of All, To Go Alone; To Refuse The Good Models, Even Those Which Are Sacred In The Imagination Of Men, And Dare To Love God Without Mediator Or Veil.
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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.
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Doing Well Is The Result Of Doing Good. That's What Capitalism Is All About.
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No Great Man Ever Complains Of Want Of Opportunity.
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The Word Miracle, As Pronounced By Christian Churches, Gives A False Impression; It Is Monster. It Is Not One With The Blowing Clover And The Falling Rain.
Christian
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Taking To Pieces Is The Trade Of Those Who Cannot Construct.
Criticism
Pieces
Trade
Cities Give Us Collision. 'tis Said, London And New York Take The Nonsense Out Of A Man.
New York
Men
Cities
Men Of Sense Esteem Wealth To Be The Assimilation Of Nature To Themselves, The Converting Of The Sap And Juices Of The Planet To The Incarnation And Nutriment Of Their Design.
Life
Men
Design
The Fatal Trait Of The Times Is The Divorce Between Religion And Morality.
Divorce
Religion
Morality
Do Not You See That Every Misfortune Is Misconduct; That Every Honour Is Desert; That Every Effort Is An Insolence Of Your Own?...you Carry Your Fortune In Your Own Hand.
Self
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If In The Least Particular, One Could Derange The Order Of Nature, Who Would Accept The Gift Of Life?
Order
Racist
Accepting
The Inmost In Due Time Becomes The Outmost.
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We Judge Of Man's Wisdom By His Hope.
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Hope
Men
A Great Licentiousness Treads On The Heels Of A Reformation.
Reform
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Heels
Englands Genius Filled All Measureof Heart And Soul, Of Strength And Pleasure,gave To The Mind Its Emperor,and Life Was Larger Than Before:nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeares Wit. The Men Who Lived With Him Becamepoets, For The Air Was Fame.
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Air
Peace Has Its Victories, But It Takes Brave Men And Women To Win Them.
Courage
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Men
All Goes To Show That The Soul In Man Is Not An Organ, But Animates And Exercises All The Organs; Is Not A Function, Like The Power Of Memory, Of Calculation, Of Comparison, But Uses These As Hands And Feet; Is Not A Faculty, But A Light, Is Not The Intellect Or The Will, But The Master Of The Intellect And The Will; Is The Background Of Our Being, In Which They Lie,--an Immensity Not Possessed And That Cannot Be Possessed.
Memories
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Without The Great Arts Which Speak To The Sense Of Beauty, A Man Seems To Me A Poor, Naked, Shivering Creature. These Are His Becoming Draperies, Which Warm And Adorn Him.
Beauty
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Men
Man Is A Stream Whose Source Is Hidden. Our Being Is Descending Into Us From We Know Not Whence.
Men
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In Eloquence, The Great Triumphs Of The Art Are When The Orator Is Lifted Above Himself; When Consciously He Makes Himself The Mere Tongue Of The Occasion And The Hour, And Says What Cannot But Be Said. Hence The Term "abandonment" To Describe The Self- Surrender Of The Orator. Not His Will, But The Principle On Which He Is Horsed, The Great Connection And Crisis Of Events, Thunder In The Ear Of The Crowd.
Art
Self
Triumph
Old & New Put Their Stamp To Everything In Nature. The Snowflake That Is Now Falling Is Marked By Both. The Present Moment Gives The Motion & The Color Of The Flake: Antiquity, Its Form & Properties. All Things Wear A Luster Which Is The Gift Of The Present & A Tarnish Of Time.
Nature
Fall
Color
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.
Religious
Book
School
Our Statute Is A Currency Which We Stamp With Our Own Portrait.
Portraits
Currency
Stamps
There Is Always A Best Way Of Doing Everything, If It Be To Boil An Egg. Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things.
Happiness
Eggs
Way
There Is An Intimate Interdependence Of Intellect And Morals.
Morality
Intimate
Intellect
Things Are In The Saddle. And Ride Mankind.
Transcendentalism
Saddles
Mankind
Ten Percent Of People Can Think, Another Ten Percent Of People Think That They Think, And Eighty Percent Of People Would Rather Die Than Be Made To Think.
Thinking
People
Made
Men Cease To Interest Us When We Find Their Limitations
Men
Limits
Interest
Life Is In Short Cycles Or Periods; We Are Quickly Tired, But We Have Rapid Rallies. A Man Is Spent By His Work, Starved, Prostrate; He Will Not Lift His Hand To Save His Life; He Can Never Think More. He Sinks Into Deep Sleep And Wakes With Renewed Youth, With Hope, Courage, Fertile In Resources, And Keen For Daring Adventure.
Tired
Adventure
Sleep
Children And Savages Use Only Nouns Or Names Of Things, Which They Convert Into Verbs, And Apply To Analogous Mental Acts.
Children
Names
Savages
Why Has My Motley Diary No Jokes? Because It Is A Soliloquy And Every Man Is Grave Alone.
Men
Diaries
Graves
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.
Horse
Passion
Games
None Believeth In The Soul Of Man, But Only In Some Man Or Person Old And Departed.
Men
Soul
Departed
The Method Of Nature: Who Could Ever Analyze It?
Nature
Method
Let Us Be Silent — So We May Hear The Whisper Of The Gods.
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God
Angel
The Powers Of The Soul Are Commensurate With Its Needs.
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Needs
The University Must Be Retrospective. The Gale That Gives Direction To The Vanes On All Its Towers Blows Out Of Antiquity.
Blow
Giving
Towers
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.
Reality
Self
Names
The Greatest Homage To Truth Is To Use It.
Truth
Use
Truth Is
Homeopathy Is Insignificant As An Act Of Healing, But Of Great Value As Criticism On The Hygeia Or Medical Practice Of The Time.
Healing
Practice
Criticism
The Sanity Of Society Is A Balance Of A Thousand Insanity's.
Insanity
Balance
Psychological
Instead Of Feeling A Poverty When We Encounter A Great Man, Let Us Treat The New Comer Like A Travelling Geologist, Who Passes Through Our Estate, And Shows Us Good Slate, Or Limestone, Or Anthracite, In Our Brush Pasture.
Travel
Greatness
Men
It Never Was In The Power Of Any Man Or Any Community To Call The Arts Into Being. They Come To Serve His Actual Wants, Never To Please His Fancy.
Art
Creativity
Men
Every Great Man Is A Unique. The Scipionism Of Scipio Is Precisely That Part He Could Not Borrow.
Greatness
Men
Unique
Life Is Very Narrow. Bring Any Club Or Company Of Intelligent Men Together Again After Ten Years, And If The Presence Of Some Penetrating And Calming Genius Could Dispose Them To Frankness, What A Confession Of Insanities Would Come Up!
Intelligent
Men
Years
Language Is Fossil Poetry.
Poetry
Fossils
Language
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.
Independent
Men
Jail
For He That Feeds Men Serveth Few; He Serves All Who Dares Be True.
Truth
Men
Charity
You Cannot Hide Any Secret. If The Artist Succor His Flagging Spirits By Opium Or Wine, His Work Will Characterize Itself As The Effect Of Opium Or Wine. If You Make A Picture Or A Statue, It Sets The Beholder In That State Of Mind You Had When You Made It. If You Spend For Show, On Building, Or Gardening, Or On Pictures, Or On Equipages, It Will So Appear. We Are All Physiognomists And Penetrators Of Character, And Things Themselves Are Detective.
Wine
Character
Artist
In England Every Man You Meet Is Some Man's Son; In America, He May Be Some Man's Father.
Father
Son
Men
Perhaps Love Is Only The Highest Symbol Of Friendship, As All Other Things Seem Symbols Of Love.
Romantic Love
Love Is
Perhaps Love
The Last Change In Our Point Of View Gives The Whole World A Pictorial Air.
Air
Views
Giving
Calmness Is Always Godlike.
Calm
Calmness
Godlike
...man Is An Analogist, And Studies Relations In All Objects. He Is Placed In The Center Of Beings, And A Ray Of Relation Passes From Every Other Being To Him. And Neither Can Man Be Understood Without These Objects, Nor These Objects Without Man.
Men
Unity
Rays
The Greatest Difficulty Is That Men Do Not Think Enough Of Themselves, Do Not Consider What It Is That They Are Sacrificing When They Follow In A Herd, Or When They Cater For Their Establishment.
Respect
Self Esteem
Sacrifice
Strange Is This Alien Despotism Of Sleep Which Takes Two Persons Lying In Each Other's Arms & Separates Them Leagues, Continents,asunder.
Lying
Sleep
Two
Looking At God Instantly Reduces Our Disposition To Dissent From Our Brother.
Brother
Disposition
Dissent
We Are Very Near To Greatness: One Step And We Are Safe; Can We Not Take The Leap?
Motivational
Greatness
Safety
A Weed Is A Plant We've Found No Use For Yet.
Patience
Weed
Use
The World Is His Who Can See Through Its Pretension.
World
Deafness
American Scholar
Art Is The Path Of The Creator To His Work.
Art
Work
Path
Some Natures Are Too Good To Be Spoiled By Praise.
Praise
Spoiled
For Each Thorn, There's A Rosebud... For Each Twilight - A Dawn... For Each Trial - The Strength To Carry On, For Each Storm Cloud - A Rainbow... For Each Shadow - The Sun... For Each Parting - Sweet Memories When Sorrow Is Done.
Sweet
Memories
Twilight
Raphael Paints Wisdom, Handel Sings It, Phidias Carves It, Shakespeare Writes It, Wren Builds It, Columbus Sails It, Luther Preaches It, Washington Arms It, Watt Mechanizes It.
Wisdom
Writing
Wrens
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.
Work
Home
Differences
All Power Is Of One Kind, A Sharing Of The Nature Of The World. The Mind That Is Parallel With The Laws Of Nature Will Be In The Current Of Events, And Strong With Their Strength.
Strong
Power
Law
Talent Finds Its Models, Methods, And Ends In Society, Exists For Exhibition, And Goes To The Soul Only For Power To Work. Genius Is Its Own End, And Draws Its Means And The Style Of Its Architecture From Within.
Work
Mean
Soul
When It Comes To Divide An Estate, The Politest Men Quarrel.
Men
Inheritance
Quarrels
When He Is Pushed, Tormented, Defeated, He Has A Chance To Learn Something; ... He Learns His Ignorance, Is Cured Of The Insanity Of Conceit; Has Got Moderation And Real Skill.
Real
Ignorance
Skills
The World Is So Beautiful That I Can Hardly Believe It Exists.
Beautiful
Believe
World
Great Men Are More Distinguished By Range And Extent Than By Originality.
Greatness
Men
Originality
True Wit Never Made Us Laugh.
Laughing
Made
Wit
So All That Is Said Of The Wise Man By Stoic Or Oriental Or Modern Essayist, Describes To Each Reader His Own Idea, Describes His Unattained But Attainable Self.
Wise
Men
Self
Every Actual State Is Corrupt. Good Men Must Not Obey The Laws Too Well. What Satire On Government Can Equal The Severity Of Censure Conveyed In The Word Politics ....?
Men
Law
Political
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.
Horse
Men
Shoes
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.
Beautiful
Stupid
Hands
What's A Book? Everything Or Nothing. The Eye That Sees It All.
Book
Reading
Eye
Eloquence Is The Appropriate Organ Of The Highest Personal Energy.
Energy
Eloquence
Organs
The Soul Contains The Event That Shall Befall It, For The Event Is Only The Actualization Of Its Thoughts; And What We Pray To Ourselves For Is Always Granted.
Soul
Events
Praying
I Am At A Loss To Understand Why People Hold Miss Austen's Novels At So High A Rate, Which Seem To Me Vulgar In Tone, Sterile In Artistic Invention, Imprisoned In Their Wretched Conventions Of English Society, Without Genius, Wit, Or Knowledge Of The World. Never Was Life So Pinched And Narrow. ... All That Interests In Any Character [is This]: Has He (or She) The Money To Marry With? ... Suicide Is More Respectable.
Suicide
Character
Loss
Drive Out Nature With A Fork, She Comes Running Back.
Running
Nature
Science
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.
Science
Light
Personality
The Vocabulary Of An Omniscient Man Would Embrace Words And Images Excluded From Polite Conversation. What Would Be Base, Or Even Obscene, To The Obscene, Becomes Illustrious, Spoken In A New Connexion Of Thought.
Men
Vocabulary
Would Be
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.
Needs
Waste
Apologizing
Silence Is A Solvent That Destroys Personality, And Gives Us Leave To Be Great And Universal.
Giving
Silence
Personality
If The Stars Should Appear One Night In A Thousand Years, How Would Men Believe And Adore; And Preserve For Many Generations The Remembrance Of The City Of God Which Had Been Shown! But Every Night Come Out These Envoys Of Beauty, And Light The Universe With Their Admonishing Smile.
Inspirational
Beauty
Nature
The Two Parties Which Divide The State, The Party Of Conservation And That Of Innovation, Are Very Old, And Have Disputed The Possession Of The World Ever Since It Was Made.
Party
Two
Political
If We Meet No Gods, It Is Because We Harbor None. If There Is Grandeur In You, You Will Find Grandeur In Porters And Sweeps.
Divinity
Harbors
Grandeur
People Who Know How To Act Are Never Preachers.
People
Preacher
Know How
Judicious Praise Is To Children What The Sun Is To Flowers. Christian Bovee A Little Praise Goes A Great Ways.
Christian
Children
Flower
Reality Is A Sliding Door.
Reality
Doors
Sliding Doors
A Sympathetic Person Is Placed In The Dilemma Of A Swimmer Among Drowning Men, Who All Catch At Him, And If He Gives So Much As A Leg Or A Finger, They Will Drown Him.
Sympathy
Men
Giving
Teach That God Is, Not Was; That He Speaketh, Not Spake.
Teach
We Shall One Day Learn To Supersede Politics By Education. What We Call Our Root-and-branch Reforms Of Slavery, War, Gambling, Intemperance, Is Only Medicating The Symptoms. We Must Begin Higher Up, Namely, In Education.
Education
War
Gambling
Speak What You Think Today In Hard Words And Tomorrow Speak What Tomorrow Thinks In Hard Words Again, Though It Contradict Every Thing You Said Today.
Thinking
Today
Tomorrow
There Is No Architect Can Build As The Muse Can; She Is Skilful To Select Materials For Her Plan.
Inspirational
Art
Muse
The Life Of Man Is A Self-evolving Circle.
Life
Men
Self
That Which We Call Sin In Others Is Experiment For Us.
Libertarian
Spirituality
Sin
When It Is Darkest, We Can See The Stars.
Stars
Suicidal
Suicide Inspirational
We May Be Partial, But Fate Is Not.
Fate
May
Shakspeare Is The Only Biographer Of Shakspeare; And Even He Can Tell Nothing, Except To The Shakspeare In Us; That Is, To Our Most Apprehensive And Sympathetic Hour.
Hours
Sympathetic
Biographers
Pines A Thousand Years Old. Every Year They Must Go Farther For Them: They Recede, Like Beavers And Indians, Before The White Man.
Men
White Man
Years
Personal Rights, Universally The Same, Demand A Government Framed On The Ratio Of The Census: Property Demands A Government Framedon The Ratio Of Owners And Of Owning.
Rights
Government
Demand
Coolness And Absence Of Heat And Haste Indicate Fine Qualities.
Quality
Haste
Heat
Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things; Each One A Stroke Of Genius Or Of Love, Now Repeated And Hardened Into Usage, They Form At Last A Rich Varnish, With Which The Routine Of Life Is Washed, And Its Details Adorned. If They Are Superficial, So Are The Dew-drops Which Give Such A Depth To The Morning Meadows.
Morning
Giving
Lasts
God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards
Faith
Courage
Work
Great Hearts Steadily Send Forth The Secret Forces That Incessantly Draw Great Events.
Positive
Heart
Law Of Attraction
I Like The Church, I Like A Cowl, I Love A Prophet Of The Soul; And On My Heart Monastic Aisles Fall Like Sweet Strains Or Pensive Smiles; Yet Not For All His Faith Can See, Would I That Cowled Churchman Be.
Sweet
Fall
Heart
Man Moves In All Modes, By Legs Of Horses, By Wings Of Winds, By Steam, By Gas Of Balloon, By Electricity, And Stands On Tiptoe Threatening To Hunt The Eagle In His Own Element.
Horse
Moving
Technology
Fear Is An Instructor Of Great Sagacity, And The Herald Of All Revolutions.
Inspirational
Courage
Fear
The Sower May Mistake And Sow His Peas Crookedly; The Peas Make No Mistake, But Come Up And Show His Line.
Inspirational
Mistake
Lines
In The Moment When You Make The Least Petition To God, Though It Be But A Silent Wish That He May Approve You, Or Add One Moment To Your Life,--do You Not, In The Very Act, Necessarily Exclude All Other Beings From Your Thought? In That Act, The Soul Stands Alone With God, And Jesus Is No More Present To Your Mind Than Your Brother Or Your Child.
God
Jesus
Brother
Can Rules Or Tutors Educate The Semigod Whom We Await? He Must Be Musical, Tremulous, Impressional, Alive To Gentle Influence Of Landscape And Of Sky And Tender To The Spirit-touch Of Man's Or Maiden's Eye.
Education
Eye
Men
If We Will Take The Good We Find, Asking No Questions, We Shall Have Heaping Measures. The Great Gifts Are Not Got By Analysis. Everything Good Is On The Highway. The Middle Region Of Our Being Is The Temperate Zone.
Contentment
Analysis
Asking
Good As Is Discourse, Silence Is Better, And Shames It. The Length Of The Discourse Indicates The Distance Of Thought Betwixt The Speaker And The Hearer. If They Were At A Perfect Understanding In Any Part, No Words Would Be Necessary Thereon. If At One In All Parts, No Words Would Be Suffered.
Distance
Perfect
Silence
I Like Man, But Not Men.
Men
All Men, In The Abstract, Are Just And Good; What Hinders Them, In The Particular, Is, The Momentary Predominance Of The Finite And Individual Over The General Truth. The Condition Of Our Incarnation In A Private Self, Seems To Be, A Perpetual Tendency To Prefer The Private Law, To Obey The Private Impulse, To The Exclusion Of The Law Of The Universal Being.
Men
Self
Law
A Friend Is A Person Who Goes Around Saying Nice Things About You Behind Your Back.
Nice
Cute Friendship
Behind Your Back
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.
Inspirational
Motivational
Success
Men Are Like Geneva Watches With Crystal Faces, Which Expose The Whole Movement.
Men
Watches
Faces
I Will Do Strongly Before The Sun And Moon Whatever Inly Rejoices Me And The Heart Apoints.
Being Yourself
Heart
Moon
The Whole Value Of The Dime Is In Knowing What To Do With It.
Money
Knowing
Dimes
A Gentleman Makes No Noise; A Lady Is Serene.
Gentleman
Noise
Quiet
For The Existing World Is Not A Dream, And Cannot With Impunity Be Treated As A Dream; Neither Is It A Disease; But It Is The Ground On Which You Stand, It Is The Mother Of Whom You Were Born.
Mother
Dream
World
Happy Will The House Be In Which The Relationships Are Formed From Character.
Character
House
Insist On Yourself; Never Imitate. Your Own Gift You Can Offer With The Cumulative Force Of A Whole Life's Cultivation, But Of The Adopted Talent Of Another, You Have Only An Extemporaneous, Half Possession.
Inspirational
Expression
Self Reliance
Test Of The Poet Is Knowledge Of Love, For Eros Is Older Than Saturn Or Jove; Never Was Poet, Of Late Or Of Yore, Who Was Not Tremulous With Love-lore.
Love
Poetry
Tests
If You Would Know What Nobody Knows, Read What Everybody Reads, Just One Year Afterwards.
Knowledge
Years
Nobody Knows
Action Is The Process Whereby What Is Not Fully Formed Passes Into Expressive Consciousness.
Inspirational
Motivation
Action
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.
Hope
Learning
Men
Nothing Can Be Colder Than His Head, When The Lightnings Of His Imagination Are Playing In The Sky.
Plato
Sky
Imagination
The Secret Of The World Is The Tie Between Person And Event. Person Makes Event And Event Person.
Ties
Secret
Events
What Is A Weed? A Plant Whose Virtues Have Never Been Discovered.
Inspirational
Funny
Life
My Son, A Perfect Little Boy Of Five Years And Three Months, Had Ended His Earthly Life. You Can Never Sympathize With Me; You Can Never Know How Much Of Me Such A Young Child Can Take Away. A Few Weeks Ago I Accounted Myself A Very Rich Man, And Now The Poorest Of All.
Inspirational
Fathers Day
Children
The Service A Man Renders His Friend Is Trivial And Selfish, Compared With The Service He Knows His Friend Stood In Readiness To Yield Him, Alike Before He Had Begun To Serve His Friend, And Now Also. Compared With That Good-will I Bear My Friend, The Benefit It Is In My Power To Render Him Seems Small.
Friendship
Selfish
Men
Who Does Not Sometimes Envy The Good And The Brave, Who Are No More To Suffer From The Tumults Of The Natural World, And Await With Curious Complacency The Speedy Term Of His Own Conversation With Finite Nature?
Courage
Envy
Brave
If You Are Wise, You Will Dread A Prosperity Which Only Loads You With More.
Wise
Simple
Prosperity
Polarity, Or Action And Reaction, We Meet In Every Part Of Nature; In Darkness And Light; In Heat And Cold; In The Ebb And Flow Of Water; In Male And Female; In The Equation Of Quantity And Quality; In The Fluids Of The Animal Body; In The Systole An
Animal
Light
Ebb And Flow
He Cannot Be Happy And Strong Until He Too Lives With Nature In The Present, Above Time.
Strong
Self Reliance
Reliance
Say, What Other Metre Is It Than The Meeting Of The Eyes? Nature Poureth Into Nature Through The Channels Of That Feature Riding On The Ray Of Sight, Fleeter Far Than Whirlwinds Go, Or For Service, Or Delight, Hearts To Hearts Their Meaning Show.
Heart
Eye
Sight
Knowledge Is The Knowing That We Cannot Know.
Honesty
Knowledge
Knowing
It Is Only When Mind And Character Slumber That The Dress Can Be Seen. If The Intellect Were Always Awake, And Every Noble Sentiment, The Man Might Go In Huckaback Or Mats, And His Dress Would Be Admired And Imitated.
Character
Mind
Dresses
Without Ambition One Starts Nothing. Without Work One Finishes Nothing. The Prize Will Not Be Sent To You. You Have To Win It. The Man Who Knows How Will Always Have A Job. The Man Who Also Knows Why Will Always Be His Boss. As To Methods There May Be A Million And Then Some, But Principles Are Few. The Man Who Grasps Principles Can Successfully Select His Own Methods. The Man Who Tries Methods, Ignoring Principles, Is Sure To Have Trouble.
Jobs
Work
Ambition
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