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There Is A Principle Which Is The Basis Of Things, Which All Speech Aims To Say, And All Action To Evolve, A Simple, Quiet, Undescribed, Undescribable Presence, Dwelling Very Peacefully In Us, Our Rightful Lord: We Are Not To Do, But To Let Do; Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There Is A Principle

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There Is A Principle Which Is The Basis Of Things, Which All Speech Aims To Say, And All Action To Evolve, A Simple, Quiet, Undescribed, Undescribable Presence, Dwelling Very Peacefully In Us, Our Rightful Lord: We Are Not To Do, But To Let Do; Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon.

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For The World Is Not Painted, Or Adorned, But Is From The Beginning Beautiful; And God Has Not Made Some Beautiful Things, But Beauty Is The Creator Of The Universe.

Judicious Praise Is To Children What The Sun Is To Flowers. Christian Bovee A Little Praise Goes A Great Ways.

Only That Is Poetry Which Cleanses And Mans Me.

Man Thinking Must Not Be Subdued By His Instruments. Books Are For The Scholar's Idle Times. When He Can Read God Directly, The Hour Is Too Precious To Be Wasted In Other Men's Transcripts Of Their Readings.

Let Not The Emphasis Of Hospitality Lie In Bed And Board; But Let Truth And Love And Honor And Courtesy Flow In All Thy Deeds.

For The Most Part, Only The Light Characters Travel. Who Are You That Have No Task To Keep You At Home?

I Am Old, Yet I Look At Wise Men And See That I Am Very Young. I Look Over Those Stars Yonder, And Into The Myriads Of The Aspirant And Ordered Souls, And See I Am A Stranger And A Youth And Have Yet My Spurs To Win. Too Ridiculous Are These Airs Of Age.

Jesus And Shakespeare Are Fragments Of The Soul, And By Love I Conquer And Incorporate Them In My Own Conscious Domain. His Virtue,--is Not That Mine? His Wit,--if It Cannot Be Made Mine, It Is Not Wit.

Fine Manners Need The Support Of Fine Manners In Others.

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.

I Do Not Wish To Please Him; I Wish That He Should Wish To Please Me.

Ne Te Quaesiveris Extra." (do Not Seek For Things Outside Of Yourself)

No Sensible Person Ever Made An Apology.

We Forget Ourselves And Our Destinies In Health, And The Chief Use Of Temporary Sickness Is To Remind Us Of These Concerns.

To Speak Truly, Few Adult Persons Can See Nature. Most Persons Do Not See The Sun. At Least They Have A Very Superficial Seeing. The Sun Illuminates Only The Eye Of The Man, But Shines Into The Eye And Heart Of The Child.

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.

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

When It Comes To Divide An Estate, The Politest Men Quarrel.

He Then Learns That In Going Down Into The Secrets Of His Own Mind, He Has Descended Into The Secrets Of All Minds.

The Course Of Everything Goes To Teach Us Faith.

In Strict Science, All Persons Underlie The Same Condition Of An Infinite Remoteness. Shall We Fear To Cool Our Love By Mining Forthe Metaphysical Foundation Of This Elysian Temple? Shall I Not Be As Real As The Things I See? If I Am, I Shall Not Fear To Know Them For What They Are.

A Beautiful Behavior Is Better Than A Beautiful Form; It Gives A Higher Pleasure Than Statues Or Pictures; It Is The Finest Of Fine Arts.

To Different Minds, The Same World Is A Hell, And A Heaven.

The Conscious Utterance Of Thought, By Speech Or Action, To Any End, Is Art.

A Farm Is A Good Thing, When It Begins And Ends With Itself, And Does Not Need A Salary, Or A Shop, To Eke It Out.

The Results Of Life Are Uncalculated And Uncalculable. The Years Teach Much Which The Days Never Know. The Persons Who Compose Our Company, Converse, And Come And Go, And Design And Execute Many Things, And Somewhat Comes Of It All, But An Unlooked For Result. The Individual Is Always Mistaken. He Designed Many Things, And Drew In Other Persons As Coadjutors, Quarrelled With Some Or All, Blundered Much, And Something Is Done; All Are A Little Advanced, But The Individual Is Always Mistaken. It Turns Out Somewhat New, And Very Unlike What He Promised Himself.

Excellence Is The New Forever.

We Are Shut Up In School And College Recitation Rooms For Ten To Fifteen Years, And Come Out At Last With A Bellyful Of Words And Do Not Know A Thing. We Cannot Use Our Hands, Or Our Legs, Or Our Eyes, Or Our Arms. We Do Not Know An Edible Root In The Woods. We Cannot Tell Our Course By The Stars, Nor The Hour Of Day By The Sun. It Is Well If We Can Swim And Skate. We Are Afraid Of A Horse Or A Cow, Of A Dog, Of A Cat, Of A Spider. Far Better Was The Roman Rule To Teach A Boy Nothing That He Could Not Learn Standing.

I Look On That Man As Happy, Who, When There Is Question Of Success, Looks Into His Work For A Reply.

Don't Waste Yourself In Rejection, Nor Bark Against The Bad, But Chant The Beauty Of The Good.

Society Gains Nothing Whilst A Man, Not Himself Renovated, Attempts To Renovate Things Around Him; He Has Become Tediously Good Insome Particular But Negligent Or Narrow In The Rest; And Hypocrisy And Vanity Are Often The Disgusting Result.

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

In The Right Hands, Literature Is Not Resorted To As A Consolation, And By The Broken And Decayed, But As A Decalogue.

In Actions Of Enthusiasm, This Drawback Appears: But In Those Lower Activities, Which Have No Higher Aim Than To Make Us More Comfortable And More Cowardly, In Actions Of Cunning, Actions That Steal And Lie, Actions That Divorce The Speculative From The Practical Faculty, And Put A Ban On Reason And Sentiment, There Is Nothing Else But Drawback And Negation.

The Pest Of Society Are The Egotist, They Are Dull And Bright, Sacred And Profane, Course And Fine. It Is A Disease That Like The Flu Falls On All Constitutions.

All Great Natures Delight In Stability; All Great Men Find Eternity Affirmed In The Very Promise Of Their Faculties.

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

There Is One Topic Peremptorily Forbidden To All Well-bred, To All Rational Mortals, Namely, Their Distempers.

Can Anything Be So Elegant As To Have Few Wants, And To Serve Them One's Self?

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy.

A Character Is Like An Acrostic Or Alexandrian Stanza; - Read It Forward, Backward, Or Across, It Still Spells The Same Thing.

It Must Be That When God Speaketh, He Should Communicate, Not One Thing, But All Things; Should Fill The World With His Voice; Should Scatter Forth Light, Nature, Time, Souls, From The Centre Of The Present Thought; And New Date And New Create The Whole.whenever A Mind Is Simple And Receives A Divine Wisdom, Old Things Pass Away, - Means, Teachers, Texts, Temples Fall; It Lives Now, And Absorbs Past And Future Into The Present Hour. All Things Are Made Sacred By Relation To It,-one As Much As Another. All Things Are Disolved To Ther Center By Thier Cause.

For, Rightly, Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth, And, Whilst I Fancied I Was Criticising Him, I Was Censuring Orrather Terminating My Own Soul.

Bare Lists Of Words Are Found Suggestive To An Imaginative And Excited Mind.

The Plays Of Children Are Nonsense, But Very Educative Nonsense. So It Is With The Largest And Solemnest Things, With Commerce, Government, Church, Marriage, And So With The History Of Every Man's Bread, And The Ways By Which He Is To Come By It.

Nature Encourages No Looseness; Pardons No Errors.

It Requires A Great Deal Of Boldness And A Great Deal Of Caution To Make A Great Fortune, And When You Have It, It Requires Ten Times As Much Skill To Keep It.

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

The Roses Under My Window Make No Reference To Former Roses Or Better Ones; They Are What They Are; They Exist With God Today. There Is No Time To Them. There Is Simply The Rose; It Is Perfect In Every Moment Of Its Existence.

The Evolution Of A Highly Destined Society Must Be Moral; It Must Run In The Grooves Of The Celestial Wheels.

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

If You Are Wise, You Will Dread A Prosperity Which Only Loads You With More.

Everything Intercepts Us From Ourselves.

Thy Dangerous Glances Make Women Of Men; New-born, We Are Melting Into Nature Again.

There Is A Mortifying Experience In Particular, Which Does Not Fail To Wreak Itself Also In The General History; I Mean "the Foolish Face Of Praise," The Forced Smile Which We Put On In Company Where We Do Not Feel At Ease, In Answer To Conversation Which Does Not Interest Us. The Muscles, Not Spontaneously Moved But Moved, By A Low Usurping Wilfulness, Grow Tight About The Outline Of The Face, With The Most Disagreeable Sensation.

Man Is A Shrewd Inventor, And Is Ever Taking The Hint Of A New Machine From His Own Structure, Adapting Some Secret Of His Own Anatomy In Iron, Wood, And Leather, To Some Required Function In The Work Of The World.

Every Man Alone Is Sincere. At The Entrance Of A Second Person, Hypocrisy Begins. We Parry And Fend The Approach Of Our Fellow-man By Compliments, By Gossip, By Amusements, By Affairs. We Cover Up Our Thought From Him Under A Hundred Folds.

The Soul Of God Is Poured Into The World Through The Thoughts Of Men.

The History Of Mankind Interests Us Only As It Exhibits A Steady Gain Of Truth And Right, In The Incessant Conflict Which It Records Between The Material And The Moral Nature.

Shall We Then Judge A Country By The Majority, Or By The Minority? By The Minority, Surely. 'tis Pedantry To Estimate Nations By The Census, Or By Square Miles Of Land, Or Other Than By Their Importance To The Mind Of The Time.

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.

Do The Thing And You Will Have The Power.

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

Man Is A Piece Of The Universe Made Alive

Power And Speed Be Hands And Feet.

Nothing Great Ever Happened Without Enthusiasm.

Solvency Is Maintained By Means Of A National Debt, On The Principle, "if You Will Not Lend Me The Money, How Can I Pay You?"

There Is Always A Best Way Of Doing Everything, If It Be To Boil An Egg. Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things.

Good Thoughts Are No Better Than Good Dreams If You Don't Follow Through.

The Condition Which High Friendship Demands Is Ability To Do Without It.

Men Of Extraordinary Success, In Their Honest Moments, Have Always Sung, "not Unto Us, Not Unto Us." According To The Faith Of Their Times, They Have Built Altars To Fortune, Or To Destiny, Or To St. Julian. Their Success Lay In Their Parallelism To The Course Of Thought, Which Found In Them An Unobstructed Channel; And The Wonders Of Which They Were The Visible Conductors Seemed To Their Eye Their Deed.

Children And Savages Use Only Nouns Or Names Of Things, Which They Convert Into Verbs, And Apply To Analogous Mental Acts.

All Forms Of Government Symbolize An Immortal Government, Common To All Dynasties And Independent Of Numbers, Perfect Where Two Men Exist, Perfect Where There Is Only One Man.

An Orchard, Good Tillage, Good Grounds, Seem A Fixture, Like A Gold Mine, Or A River, To A Citizen; But To A Large Farmer, Not Much More Fixed Than The State Of The Crop.

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.

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.

Go Put Your Creed Into Your Deed, Nor Speak With Double Tongue.

The Chief Value Of The New Fact Is To Enhance The Great And Constant Fact Of Life.

The Reality Is More Excellent Than The Report.

The Highest Praise We Can Attribute To Any Writer, Painter, Sculptor, Builder, Is, That He Actually Possessed The Thought Or Feeling With Which He Has Inspired Us.

All My Best Thoughts Were Stolen By The Ancients.

There Are Men Whose Language Is Strong And Defying Enough, Yet Their Eyes And Their Actions Ask Leave Of Other Men To Live.

Every Ship Is A Romantic Object, Except That We Sail In.

Cultivate The Habit Of Being Grateful For Every Good Thing That Comes To You, And To Give Thanks Continuously. And Because All Things Have Contributed To Your Advancement, You Should Include All Things In Your Gratitude.

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

Drive Out Nature With A Fork, She Comes Running Back.

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

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

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

When It Is Dark Enough, Men See The Stars.

What Is Addressed To Us For Contemplation Does Not Threaten Us, But Makes Us Intellectual Beings.

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise. Our First Journeys Discover To Us The Indifference Of Places.

What Is The Imagination? Only An Arm Or Weapon Of The Interior Energy; Only The Precursor Of The Reason.

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

Unhappily, No Man Exists Who Has Not In His Own Person Become, To Some Amount, A Stockholder In The Sin, And So Made Himself Liable To A Share In The Expiation.

But Dare Rather To Quit The Platform, Plunge Into The Sublime Seas, Dive Deep, & Swim Far, So Shall You Come Back With Self-respect, With New Power, With An Advanced Experience, That Shall Explain & Overlook The Old. Trust Your Emotion.

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

As A Man Thinketh, So Is He, And As A Man Chooseth, So Is He.

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

We Live By Our Imagination, Our Admirations, And Our Sentiments.

If We Encounter A Man Of Rare Intellect, We Should Ask Him What Books He Reads.

It Seems As If The Day Was Not Wholly Profane In Which We Have Given Heed To Some Natural Object.

If You Maintain A Dead Church, Contribute To A Dead Bible-society, Vote With A Great Party Either For The Government Or Against It, Spread Your Table Like Base Housekeepers, - Under All These Screens I Have Diffuculty To Detect The Precise Man You Are: And Of Course So Much Force Is Withdrawn From Your Proper Life. But Do Your Work And I Shall Know You. Do Your Work, And You Shall Reinforce Yourself. A Man Must Consider What A Blind-man's Bluff Is This Game Of Conformity. If I Know Your Sect I Anticipate Your Argument.

The Only Joy In His Being Mine, Is That The Not Mine Is Mine.

The God Who Made New Hampshire Taunted The Lofty Land With Little Men.

We Are Impressed And Even Daunted By The Immense Universe To Be Explored. "what We Know Is A Point To What We Do Not Know."

There Are People Who Have An Appetite For Grief; Pleasure Is Not Strong Enough And They Crave Pain. They Have Mithridatic Stomachs Which Must Be Fed On Poisoned Bread, Natures So Doomed That No Prosperity Can Sooth Their Ragged And Dishevelled Desolation.

The Noblest Ministry Of Nature Is To Stand As The Apparition Of God.

Men Do Not Believe In The Power Of Education. We Do Not Think We Can Speak To Divine Sentiments In Man, And We Do Not Try. We Renounce All High Aims.

Nothing Is Great But The Inexhaustible Wealth Of Nature.

Defect In Manners Is Usually The Defect Of Fine Perceptions. Men Are Too Coarsely Made For The Delicacy Of Beautiful Carriage And Customs. It Is Not Quite Sufficient To Good Breeding, A Union Of Kindness And Independence.

Better Be A Nettle In The Side Of Your Friend Than His Echo.

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

Many A Profound Genius, I Suppose, Who Fills The World With Fame Of His Exploding Renowned Errors, Is Yet Everyday Posed And Baffled By Trivial Questions At His Own Supper Table.

In Old Egypt, It Was Established Law, That The Vote Of A Prophet Be Reckoned Equal To A Hundred Hands. I Think It Was Much Under-estimated.

Why Should The Way I Feel Depend On The Thoughts In Someone Else's Head?

This Is My Wish For You: Comfort On Difficult Days, Smiles When Sadness Intrudes, Rainbows To Follow The Clouds, Laughter To Kiss Your Lips, Sunsets To Warm Your Heart, Hugs When Spirits Sag, Beauty For Your Eyes To See, Friendships To Brighten Your Being, Faith So That You Can Believe, Confidence For When You Doubt, Courage To Know Yourself, Patience To Accept The Truth, Love To Complete Your Life.

The Great Man Is Not Convulsible Or Tormentable; Events Pass Over Him Without Much Impression.

We Swim, Day By Day, On A River Of Delusions, And Are Effectually Amused With Houses And Towns In The Air, Of Which The Men Aboutus Are Dupes. But Life Is A Sincerity.

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

Those Who Live To The Future Must Always Appear Selfish To Those Who Live To The Present.

If You Act, You Show Character; If You Sit Still, You Show It; If You Sleep You Show It.

Bonaparte Knew But One Merit, And Rewarded In One And The Same Way The Good Soldier, The Good Astronomer, The Good Poet, The Good Player.

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.

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.

We See God Face To Face Every Hour, And Know The Savor Of Nature.

Happy Is The House That Shelters A Friend! It Might Well Be Built, Like A Festal Bower Or Arch, To Entertain Him A Single Day. Happier, If He Know The Solemnity Of That Relation, And Honor Its Law! He Offers Himself A Candidate For That Covenant Comes Up, Like An Olympian, To The Great Games, Where The First- Born Of The World Are The Competitors.

It Is Very Unhappy, But Too Late To Be Helped, The Discovery We Have Made, That We Exist

There Is No Strong Performance Without A Little Fanaticism In The Performer.

Don't Be Pushed By Your Problems. Be Led By Your Dreams.

Each Man Too Is A Tyrant In Tendency, Because He Would Impose His Idea On Others; And Their Trick Is Their Natural Defence. Jesuswould Absorb The Race; But Tom Paine Or The Coarsest Blasphemer Helps Humanity By Resisting This Exuberance Of Power.

I Am The Lover Of Uncontained And Immortal Beauty. In The Wilderness, I Find Something More Dear And Connate Than In Streets Or Villages. In The Tranquil Landscape, And Especially In The Distant Line Of The Horizon, Man Beholds Somewhat As Beautiful As His Own Nature.

Greek Architecture Is The Flowering Of Geometry.

It Is Not What Talents Or Genius A Man Has, But How He Is To His Talents, That Constitutes Friendship And Character. The Man Thatstands By Himself, The Universe Stands By Him Also.

For It Is Not Metres, But A Metre-making Argument That Makes A Poem, - A Thought So Passionate And Alive That Like The Spirit Of A Plant Or An Animal It Has An Architecture Of Its Own, And Adorns Nature With A New Thing.

A Poet Is No Rattlebrain, Saying What Comes Uppermost, And, Because He Says Every Thing, Saying, At Last, Something Good; But A Heart In Unison With His Time And Country. There Is Nothing Whimsical Or Fantastic In His Production, But Sweet And Sad Earnest, Freighted With The Weightiest Convictions, And Pointed With The Most Determined Aim Which Any Man Or Class Knows Of In His Times.

The Eyes Indicate The Antiquity Of The Soul.

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

Do Not Tell Me Of My Obligation To Put All Poor Men In Good Situations. Are They My Poor? I Tell Thee, Thou Foolish Philanthropist, That I Grudge The Dollar, The Dime, The Cent, I Give To Such Men As Do Not Belong To Me And To Whom I Do Not Belong

He Who Should Inspire And Lead His Race Must Be Defended From Travelling With The Souls Of Other Men, From Living, Breathing, Reading, And Writing In The Daily, Time-worn Yoke Of Their Opinions.

Who Is He That Shall Control Me? Why May Not I Act And Speak And Write And Think With Entire Freedom? What Am I To The Universe, Or, The Unvierse, What Is It To Me? Who Hath Forged The Chains Of Wrong And Right, Of Opinion And Custom? And Must I Wear Them?

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.

The Saint And Poet Seek Privacy To Ends The Most Public And Universal: And It Is The Secret Of Culture, To Interest The Man More In His Public, Than In His Private Quality.

There Is No Man Of Nature's Worth In The Circle Of The Earth.

A Scholar Is A Man With His Inconvenience, That, When You Ask Him His Opinion Of Any Matter, He Must Go Home And Look Up His Manuscripts To Know.

The Man (or Woman) Who Can Make Hard Things Easy Is The Educator.

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

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

In The Greek Cities, It Was Reckoned Profane, That Any Person Should Pretend A Property In A Work Of Art, Which Belonged To All Who Could Behold It.

Nature Hates Calculators.

The World Is The Perennial Miracle Which The Soul Worketh.

Character Is That Which Can Do Without Success.

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

Don't Set Out To Teach Theism From Your Natural History... You Spoil Both.

Science And Religion

The Reverence For The Deeds Of Our Ancestors Is A Treacherous Sentiment. Their Merit Was Not To Reverence The Old, But To Honor The Present Moment; And We Falsely Make Them Excuses Of The Very Habit Which They Hated And Defied.

I See My Trees Repair Their Boughs.

Truth Has Not Single Victories; All Things Are Its Organs,--not Only Dust And Stones, But Errors And Lies.

By The Rude Bridge That Arched The Flood, Their Flag To April's Breeze Unfurled, Here Once The Embattled Farmers Stood, And Fired The Shot Heard Round The World. The Foe Long Since In Silence Slept; Alike The Conqueror Silent Sleeps; And Time The Ruined Bridge Has Swept Down The Dark Stream Which Seaward Creeps. On This Green Bank, By This Soft Stream, We Set To-day A Votive Stone; That Memory May Their Deed Redeem, When, Like Our Sires, Our Sons Are Gone.

Earth's A Howling Wilderness, Truculent With Fraud And Force.

There Is Also Something Excellent In Every Audience,--the Capacity Of Virtue. They Are Ready To Be Beatified.

New York Is A Sucked Orange. All Conversation Is At An End, When We Have Discharged Ourselves Of A Dozen Personalities, Domestic Or Imported, Which Make Up Our American Existence.

Good Writing Is A Kind Of Skating Which Carries Off The Performer Where He Would Not Go.

You Think Me The Child Of Circumstance; I Make My Circumstance.

Because The Soul Is Progressive, It Never Quite Repeats Itself, But In Every Act Attempts The Production Of A New And Fairer Whole.

Practice Radical Humility." He (or She)who Masters The Art Of Humility Cannot Be Humiliated.

In Spite Of Warnings, Change Rarely Occurs Until The Status Quo Becomes More Painful Than Change. People Seem Not To See That Their Opinion Of The World Is Also A Confession Of Their Character.

Never Utter The Truism But Live It Among Men.

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

The Greatest Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself.

The Finest People Marry The Two Sexes In Their Own Person.

The Cardinal Virtue Of A Teacher [is] To Protect The Pupil From His Own Influence.

Man Is A Stream Whose Source Is Hidden. Our Being Is Descending Into Us From We Know Not Whence. The Most Exact Calculator Has Noprescience That Somewhat Incalculable May Not Balk The Very Next Moment. I Am Constrained Every Moment To Acknowledge A Higher Origin For Events Than The Will I Call Mine.

Men Do What Is Called A Good Action, As Some Piece Of Courage Or Charity, Much As They Would Pay A Fine In Expiation Of Daily Non-appearance On Parade. Their Works Are Done As An Apology Or Extenuation Of Their Living In The World. I Do Not Wish To Expiate, But To Live. My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life.

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

Delicious Is A Just And Firm Encounter Of Two In A Thought, In A Feeling.

All Promise Outruns Performance.

Power Dwells With Cheerfulness.

Positive Attitude

The Never-ending Task Of Self Improvement.

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.

No Great Man Ever Complains Of Want Of Opportunity.

Poverty Consist In Feeling Poor.

Pines A Thousand Years Old. Every Year They Must Go Farther For Them: They Recede, Like Beavers And Indians, Before The White Man.

All The World Loves A Lover.

Let Us Not Be Too Much Acquainted. I Would Have A Man Enter His House Through A Hall Filled With Heroic And Sacred Sculptures, That He Might Not Want The Hint Of Tranquillity And Self-poise.

All The Mistakes I Make Arise From Forsaking My Own Station And Trying To See The Object From Another Person's Point Of View.

The Power Of A Man Increases Steadily By Continuing In One Direction.

Men Over Forty Are No Judges Of A Book Written In A New Spirit.

The Sensual Man Conforms Thoughts To Things; The Poet Conforms Things To His Thoughts.

Who Makes And Keeps The Jew Or The Negro Base, Who But You, Who Exclude Them From The Rights Which Others Enjoy?

Let Us Not Forget The Genial Miraculous Force We Have Known To Proceed From A Book.

A Friend Is Janus-faced: He Looks To The Past And The Future. He Is The Child Of All My Foregoing Hours, The Prophet Of Those To Come, And The Harbinger Of A Greater Friend.

Every Rational Creature Has All Nature For His Dowry And Estate. It Is His, If He Will. He May Divest Himself Of It; He May Creepinto A Corner, And Abdicate His Kingdom, As Most Men Do, But He Is Entitled To The World By His Constitution.

Your Work Should Be In Praise Of What You Love.

Nobody Is Glad In The Gladness Of Another, And Our System Is One Of War, Of An Injurious Superiority. Every Child Of The Saxon Race Is Educated To Wish To Be First. It Is Our System; And A Man Comes To Measure His Greatness By The Regrets, Envies, And Hatreds Of His Competitors.

Stay At Home In Your Mind. Don't Recite Other People's Opinions.

The Secret In Education Lies In Respecting The Student.

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.

Undoubtedly We Have No Questions To Ask Which Are Unanswerable. We Must Trust The Perfection Of The Creation So Far, As To Believe That Whatever Curiosity The Order Of Things Has Awakened In Our Minds, The Order Of Things Can Satisfy. Every Man's Condition Is A Solution In Hieroglyphic To Those Inquiries He Would Put. He Acts It As Life, Before He Apprehends It As Truth.

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

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

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