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There Is No Luck In Literary Reputation. They Who Make Up The Final Verdict Upon Every Book Are Not The Partial And Noisy Readers Of The Hour When It Appears; But A Court As Of Angels, A Public Not To Be Bribed, Not To Be Entreated, And Not To Be Overawed, Decides Upon Every Man's Title To Fame.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There Is No Luck

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There Is No Luck In Literary Reputation. They Who Make Up The Final Verdict Upon Every Book Are Not The Partial And Noisy Readers Of The Hour When It Appears; But A Court As Of Angels, A Public Not To Be Bribed, Not To Be Entreated, And Not To Be Overawed, Decides Upon Every Man's Title To Fame.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

Put The Argument Into A Concrete Shape, Into An Image, Some Hard Phrase, Round And Solid As A Ball, Which They Can See And Handle And Carry Home With Them, And The Cause Is Half Won.

The Things Taught In Schools & Colleges Are Not An Education But The Means Of Education.

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.

Under Every Deep A Lower Deep Opens.

Hitch Your Wagon To A Star.

It Is The Last Lesson Of Modern Science, That The Highest Simplicity Of Structure Is Produced, Not By Few Elements, But By The Highest Complexity.

The Mob Is Man Voluntarily Descending To The Nature Of The Beast.

Society Is A Wave. The Wave Moves Onward, But The Water Of Which It Is Composed Does Not.

War Disorganizes, But It Is To Reorganize.

A Person's Life Is Limited But Serving The People Is Limitless. I Want To Devote My Limited Life To Serving The People Limitlessly.

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

Make Yourself Necessary To The World, And Mankind Will Give You Bread.

Every Experiment, By Multitudes Or By Individuals, That Has A Sensual And Selfish Aim, Will Fail.

The Wise Man Always Throws Himself On The Side Of His Assailants. It Is More His Interest Than It Is Theirs To Find His Weak Point.

Nature: She Pardons No Mistakes. Her Yea Is Yea, And Her Nay, Nay.

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.

If The Stars Should Appear But One Night Every Thousand Years How Man Would Marvel And Stare.

The Stars Awaken A Certain Reverence, Because Though Always Present, They Are Inaccessible; But All Natural Objects Make A Kindred Impression, When The Mind Is Open To Their Influence. Nature Never Wears A Mean Appearance. Neither Does The Wisest Man Extort Her Secret, And Lose His Curiosity By Finding Out All Her Perfection. Nature Never Became A Toy To A Wise Spirit. The Flowers, The Animals, The Mountains, Reflected The Wisdom Of His Best Hour, As Much As They Had Delighted The Simplicity Of His Childhood.

We Early Arrive At The Great Discovery That There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men: That What Is Individual Is Less Than What Is Universalthat Error, Vice And Disease Have Their Seat In The Superficial Or Individual Nature.

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

The Right Eloquence Needs No Bell To Call The People Together, And No Constable To Keep Them.

The Interminable Forests Should Become Graceful Parks, For Use And Delight.

Every Individual Man Has A Bias Which He Must Obey, And...it Is Only As He Feels And Obeys This That He Rightly Develops And Attains His Legitimate Power In The World. It Is His Magnetic Needle, Which Points Always In One Direction To His Proper Path.... He Is Never Happy Nor Strong Until He Finds It, Keeps It.

Will Is The Measure Of Power. To A Great Genius There Must Be A Great Will. If The Thought Is Not A Lamp To The Will, Does Not Proceed To An Act, The Wise Are Imbecile. He Alone Is Strong And Happy Who Has A Will. The Rest Are Herds. He Uses; They Are Used. He Is Of The Maker; They Are Of The Made. Will Is Always Miraculous, Being The Presence Of God To Men. When It Appears In A Man He Is A Hero, And All Metaphysics Are At Fault.

When It's Dark Enough Men See Stars.

Oxford Is A Little Aristocracy In Itself, Numerous And Dignified Enough To Rank With Other Estates In The Realm; And Where Fame And Secular Promotion Are To Be Had For Study, And In A Direction Which Has The Unanimous Respect Of All Cultivated Nations.

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

The Gothic Cathedral Is A Blossoming In Stone Subdued By The Insatiable Demand Of Harmony In Man.

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

Nature Tells Every Secret Once.

A Man Must Be Clothed With Society, Or We Shall Feel A Certain Bareness And Poverty, As Of A Displaced And Unfurnished Member. He Is To Be Dressed In Arts And Institutions, As Well As In Body Garments. Now And Then A Man Exquisitely Made Can Live Alone, And Must; But Coop Up Most Men And You Undo Them.

The World Is The Ring Of His Spells, And The Play Of His Miracles.

I Find That The Americans Have No Passions, They Have Appetites.

Let A Man Learn To Look For The Permanent In The Mutable And Fleeting; Let Him Learn To Bear The Disappearance Of Things He Was Wont To Reverence; Without Losing His Reverence; Let Him Learn That He Is Here, Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon; And That, Though Abyss Open Under Abyss, And Opinion Displace Opinion, All Are At Last Contained In The Eternal Cause.

We Imperatively Require A Perception Of And A Homage To Beauty In Our Companions. Other Virtues Are In Request In The Field And Workyard, But A Certain Degree Of Taste Is Not To Be Spared In Those We Sit With.

The Music That Can Deepest Reach And Cure All Ill Is Cordial Speech.

I Feel The Same Truth How Often In My Trivial Conversation With My Neighbours, That Somewhat Higher In Each Of Us Overlooks This By-play, And Jove Nods To Jove From Behind Each Of Us.

After You Have Pumped Your Brains For Thoughts And Verses, There Is A Better Poetry Hinted In Whistling A Tune On Your Walk.

Why Should I Cumber Myself With Regrets That The Receiver Is Not Capacious? It Never Troubles The Sun That Some Of His Rays Fall Wide And Vain Into Ungrateful Space, And Only A Small Part On The Reflecting Planet. Let Your Greatness Educate The Crude And Cold Companion.

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

All Men Are Poets At Heart. They Serve Nature For Bread, But Her Loveliness Overcomes Them Sometimes.

And Yet--it Is Not Beauty That Inspires The Deepest Passion. Beauty Without Grace Is The Hook Without The Bait. Beauty, Without Expression, Tires.

The Perception Of The Comic Is A Tie Of Sympathy With Other Men.

Ever Fresh The Broad Creation, A Divine Improvisation, From The Heart Of God Proceeds, A Single Will, A Million Deeds.

Our Chief Want In Life Is Somebody Who Will Make Us Do What We Can.

Wisdom Has Its Root In Goodness, Not Goodness Its Root In Wisdom.

The Field Cannot Be Well Seen From Within The Field. The Astronomer Must Have His Diameter Of The Earth's Orbit As A Base To Fix The Parallax Of Any Other Star

In A Tavern Everybody Puts On Airs Except The Landlord.

Human Condition

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

Thus Is Man Made Equal To Every Event. He Can Face Danger For The Right. A Poor, Tender, Painful Body, He Can Run Into Flame Or Bullets Or Pestilence, With Duty For His Guide.

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

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.

Spoons And Skimmers You Can Be Undistinguishably Together; But Vases And Statues Require Each A Pedestal For Itself.

Not The Sun Or Summer Alone, But Every Hour And Season Yields Its Tribute Of Delight.

Without A Rich Heart, Wealth Is An Ugly Beggar.

Every Mind Is Different; And The More It Is Unfolded, The More Pronounced Is That Difference.

We Are The Children Of Many Sires, And Every Drop Of Blood In Us In Its Turn Betrays Its Ancestor.

[t]omorrow Is A New Day. You Shall Begin It Well & Serenely, & With Too High A Spirit To Be Cumbered With Your Old Nonsense. This Day ... Is Too Dear With Its Hopes & Invitations To Waste A Moment On The Rotten Yesterdays.

Every Man Has A Vocation. The Talent Is The Call.

A Man's Personal Defects Will Commonly Have With The Rest Of The World Precisely That Importance Which They Have To Himself. If He Makes Light Of Them, So Will Other Men.

The Multitude Of The Sick Shall Not Make Us Deny The Existence Of Health.

All Men Are Poets At Heart.

Do What You Fear And Your Fear Will Die.

The Sanity Of Society Is A Balance Of A Thousand Insanity's.

The World When Seen Through A Little Child's Eyes, Greatly Resembles Paradise. Happiness Is Doing With A Smile What You Have To Do Anyway. This Time, Like All Time, Is A Very Good One If We But Know What To Do With It.

We Are As Much Informed Of A Writer's Genius By What He Selects As By What He Originates.

We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Power Of Thoughts.

Power Of Thought

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

The Land Is The Appointed Remedy For Whatever Is False And Fantastic In Our Culture. The Continent We Inhabit Is To Be Physic Andfood For Our Mind, As Well As Our Body. The Land, With Its Tranquilizing, Sanative Influences, Is To Repair The Errors Of A Scholastic And Traditional Education, And Bring Us To Just Relations With Men And Things.

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.

Tis A Short Sight To Limit Our Faith In Laws To Those Of Gravity, Of Chemistry, Of Botany, And So Forth.

You Have Just Dined, And However Scrupulously The Slaughterhouse Is Concealed In The Graceful Distance Of Miles, There Is Complicity.

There Is No Country In Which So Absolute A Homage Is Paid To Wealth. In America There Is A Touch Of Shame When A Man Exhibits Theevidences Of Large Property, As If After All It Needed Apology. But The Englishman Has Pure Pride In His Wealth, And Esteems It A Final Certificate. A Coarse Logic Rules Throughout All English Souls: If You Have Merit, Can You Not Show It By Your Good Clothes And Coach And Horses?

Little Thinks, In The Field, Yon Red-cloaked Clown, Of Thee, From The Hill-top Looking Down; And The Heifer, That Lows In The Upland Farm, Far-heard, Lows Not Thine Ear To Charm; The Sexton Tolling The Bell At Noon, Dreams Not That Great Napoleon Sto

The Difference Between The Actual And The Ideal Force Of Man Is Happily Figured In By The Schoolmen, In Saying, That The Knowledgeof Man Is An Evening Knowledge, Vespertina Cognitio, But That Of God Is A Morning Knowledge, Matutina Cognitio.

A Cheerful, Intelligent Face Is The End Of Culture.

Men Are Respectable Only As They Respect.

The Proof Of A High Education Is The Ability To Speak About Complex Matters As Simply As Possible.

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

Money Often Costs Too Much, And Power And Pleasure Are Not Cheap.

If The East Loves Infinity, The West Delights In Boundaries.

By Going One Step Further Back In Thought, Discordant Opinions Are Reconciled By Being Seen To Be Two Extremes Of One Principle, And We Can Never Go So Far Back As To Preclude A Still Higher Vision.

Magic And All That Is Ascribed To It Is A Deep Presentiment Of The Powers Of Science.

The Essence Of Friendship Is Entireness, A Total Magnanimity And Trust.

Whatever Events In Progress Shall Disgust Men With Cities, And Infuse Into Them The Passion For Country Life, And Country Pleasures, Will Render A Service To The Whole Face Of This Continent, And Will Further The Most Poetic Of All The Occupations Of Real Life, The Bringing Out By Art The Native But Hidden Graces Of The Landscape.

The World Is Young: The Former Great Men Call To Us Affectionately. We Too Must Write Bibles, To Unite Again The Heavens And The Earthly World.

Do The Thing And You Will Have The Power.

The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance. Necessity Is The Law Of All Who Are Not Self-possessed.

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 Are Men Too Superior To Be Seen Except By A Few, As There Are Notes Too High For The Scale Of Most Ears.

The Whole Constitution Of Property On Its Present Tenures, Is Injurious, And Its Influence On Persons Deteriorating And Degrading.

Beware Of What You Want-for You Will Get It.

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

I Read The Other Day Some Verses Written By An Eminent Painter Which Were Original And Not Conventional. The Soul Always Hears An Admonition In Such Lines, Let The Subject Be What It May. The Sentiment They Instil Is Of More Value Than Any Thought They May Contain. To Believe Your Own Thought, To Believe That What Is True For You In Your Private Heart Is True For All Men, - That Is Genius.

Where Dwells The Religion? Tell Me First Where Dwells Electricity, Or Motion, Or Thought Or Gesture. They Do Not Dwell Or Stay Atall. Electricity Cannot Be Made Fast, Mortared Up And Ended, Like London Monument, Or The Tower, So That You Shall Know Where To Find It, And Keep It Fixed, As The English Do With Their Things, Forevermore; It Is Passing, Glancing, Gesticular; It Is A Traveller, A Newness, A Surprise, A Secret Which Perplexes Them, And Puts Them Out.

Columbus Discovered No Isle Or Key So Lonely As Himself.

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.

Among Provocative, The Next Best Thing To Good Preaching Is Bad Preaching.

A Weed Is A Plant We've Found No Use For Yet.

Always Scorn Appearances And You Always May.

A Good Symbol Is The Best Argument, And Is A Missionary To Persuade Thousands.

Life Is Too Short To Waste.

Life Is Too Short

Imagination Is A Very High Sort Of Seeing, Which Does Not Come By Study, But By The Intellect Being Where And What It Sees, By Sharing The Path, Or Circuits Of Things Through Forms, And So Making Them Translucid To Others.

The Imagination And The Senses Cannot Be Gratified At The Same Time.

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.

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

Luckily For Us, Now That Steam Has Narrowed The Atlantic To A Strait, The Nervous, Rocky West Is Intruding A New And Continental Element Into The National Mind, As We Shall Yet Have An American Genius.

The Finest Poetry Was First Experience.

Ah Fate, Cannot A Man Be Wise Without A Beard? East, West, From Beer To Dan, Say, Was It Never Heard That Wisdom Might In Youth Be Gotten, Or Wit Be Ripe Before 't Was Rotten?

Men Are Like Geneva Watches With Crystal Faces, Which Expose The Whole Movement.

The Lover Of Nature Is He Whose Inward And Outward Senses Are Still Truly Adjusted To Each Other.

But Every Jet Of Chaos Which Threatens To Exterminate Us Is Convertible By Intellect Into Wholesome Force. Fate Is Unpenetrated Causes.

We Cannot Describe The Natural History Of The Soul, But We Know That It Is Divine. All Things Are Known To The Soul. It Is Not To Be Surprised By Any Communication. Nothing Can Be Greater Than It, Let Those Fear And Those Fawn Who Will. The Soul Is In Her Native Realm; And It Is Wider Than Space, Older Than Time, Wide As Hope, Rich As Love. Pusillanimity And Fear She Refuses With A Beautiful Scorn; They Are Not For Her Who Putteth On Her Coronation Robes, And Goes Out Through Universal Love To Universal Power.

Every Man Is As Lazy As He Dares To Be.

Keep The Town For Occasions, But The Habits Should Be Formed In Retirement.

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.

For, The Advantages Which Fashion Values, Are Plants Which Thrive In Very Confined Localities, In A Few Streets, Namely. Out Of This Precinct, They Go For Nothing; Are Of No Use In The Farm, In The Forest, In The Market, In War, In The Nuptial Society, In The Literary Or Scientific Circle, At Sea, In Friendship, In The Heaven Of Thought Or Virtue.

Great Country, Diminutive Minds. America Is Formless, Has No Terrible And No Beautiful Condensation.

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

I Would Put Myself In The Attitude To Look In The Eye An Abstract Truth, And I Cannot. I Blench And Withdraw On This Side And On That. I Seem To Know What He Meant Who Said, No Man Can See God Face To Face And Live.

If You Would Not Be Known To Do Anything, Never Do It.

The Delicious Faces Of Children, The Beauty Of School-girls, "the Sweet Seriousness Of Sixteen," The Lofty Air Of Well-born, Well-bred Boys, The Passionate Histories In The Looks And Manners Of Youth And Early Manhood, And The Varied Power In All That Well-known Company That Escort Us Through Life,--we Know How These Forms Thrill, Paralyze, Provoke, Inspire, And Enlarge Us.

Overhead The Sanctities Of The Stars Shine Forever-more... Pouring Satire On The Pompous Business Of The Day Which They Close, And Making The Generations Of Men Show Slight And Evanescent.

When I Was Praised I Lost My Time, For Instantly I Turned Around To Look At The Work I Had Thought Slightly Of, And That Day I Made Nothing New.

The History Of Reform Is Always Identical; It Is The Comparison Of The Idea With The Fact. Our Modes Of Living Are Not Agreeable To Our Imagination. We Suspect They Are Unworthy. We Arraign Our Daily Employments.

Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

Transcendentalism

All Things Are Moral. That Soul, Which Within Us Is A Sentiment, Outside Of Us Is A Law. We Feel Its Inspiration; Out There In History We Can See Its Fatal Strength.

Sleep Takes Off The Costume Of Circumstance, Arms Us With Terrible Freedom, So That Every Will Rushes To A Deed.

Be As Beneficent As The Sun Or The Sea, But If Your Rights As A Rational Being Are Trenched On, Die On The First Inch Of Your Territory.

A Man Often Pays Dear For A Small Frugality.

I May Say It Of Our Preposterous Use Of Books,--he Knew Not What To Do, And So He Read.

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

Of All Debts, Men Are Least Willing To Pay Their Taxes; What A Satire This Is On Government.

The Word Liberty In The Mouth Of Mr. Webster Sounds Like The Word Love In The Mouth Of A Courtesan.

A Skilful Man Reads His Dreams For His Selfknowledge; Yet Not The Details, But The Quality.

We Are Wiser Than We Know.

A Man Should Not Go Where He Cannot Carry His Whole Sphere Or Society With Him,mnot Bodily, The Whole Circle Of His Friends, But Atmospherically. He Should Preserve In A New Company The Same Attitude Of Mind And Reality Of Relation, Which His Daily Associates Draw Him To, Else He Is Shorn Of His Best Beams, And Will Be An Orphan In The Merriest Club.

It Happens To Us Once Or Twice In A Lifetime To Be Drunk With Some Book Which Probably Has Some Extraordinary Relative Power To Intoxicate Us And None Other; And Having Exhausted That Cup Of Enchantment We Go Groping In Libraries All Our Years Afterwards In The Hope Of Being In Paradise Again.

In Private Places, Among Sordid Objects, An Act Of Truth Or Heroism Seems At Once To Draw To Itself The Sky As Its Temple, The Sun As Its Cradle. Nature Stretches Out Her Arms To Embrace Man, Only Let His Thoughts Be Of Equal Greatness.

We Legislate Against Forestalling And Monopoly; We Would Have A Common Granary For The Poor; But The Selfishness Which Hoards Thecorn For High Prices, Is The Preventative Of Famine; And The Law Of Self-preservation Is Surer Policy Than Any Legislation Can Be.

I Have Heard That Stiff People Lose Something Of Their Awkwardness Under High Ceilings, And In Spacious Halls. I Think, Sculptureand Painting Have An Effect To Teach Us Manners, And Abolish Hurry.

Every Noble Activity Makes Room For Itself.

The Englishman Who Has Lost His Fortune Is Said To Have Died Of A Broken Heart.

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

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.

All The Tools And Engines On Earth Are Only Extensions Of Man's Limbs And Senses.

I Think We Must Get Rid Of Slavery Or We Must Get Rid Of Freedom.

Without Looking, Then, To Those Extraordinary Social Influences Which Are Now Acting In Precisely This Direction, But Only At Whatis Inevitably Doing Around Us, I Think We Must Regard The Land As A Commanding And Increasing Power On The Citizen, The Sanative And Americanizing Influence, Which Promises To Disclose New Virtues For Ages To Come.

In Self-trust All The Virtues Are Comprehended.

Everywhere I Am Hindered Of Meeting God In My Brother, Because He Has Shut His Own Temple Doors And Recites Fables Merely Of His Brother's, Or His Brother's Brother's God.

I Am Become A Transparent Eyeball.

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.

I Could Better Eat With One Who Did Not Respect The Truth Or The Laws, Than With A Sloven And Unpresentable Person. Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Shorter Distances, The Senses Are Despotic.

Life Is Unnecessarily Long. Moments Of Insight, Of Fine Personal Relation, A Smile, A Glance,--what Ample Borrowers Of Eternity They Are!

Science Is Organized Knowledge. Wisdom Is Organized Life. Football Is Four 15-minute Quarters. Plus Timeouts And Commercials.

The Best University That Can Be Recommended To A Man Of Ideas Is The Gauntlet Of The Mob.

The Wise Skeptic Does Not Teach Doubt But How] To Look For The Permanent In The Mutable And Fleeting.

Music Causes Us To Think Eloquently.

The People Are To Be Taken In Very Small Doses.

Public Speaking

Nobody Trips Over Mountains. It Is The Small Pebble That Causes You To Stumble. Pass All The Pebbles In Your Path And You Will Find You Have Crossed The Mountain. The Mind Does Not Create What It Perceives, Anymore Than The Eye Creates The Rose.

Shakespeare Will Never Be Made By The Study Of Shakespeare.

This Whole Business Of Trade Gives Me To Pause And Think, As It Constitutes False Relations Between Men; Inasmuch As I Am Prone Tocount Myself Relieved Of Any Responsibility To Behave Well And Nobly To That Person Who I Pay With Money, Whereas If I Had Not That Commodity, I Should Be Put On My Good Behavior In All Companies, And Man Would Be A Benefactor To Man, As Being Himself His Only Certificate That He Had A Right To Those Aids And Services Which Each Asked Of The Other.

The Wise Know That Foolish Legislation Is A Rope Of Sand, Which Perishes In The Twisting.

Love Not The Flower They Pluck And Know It Not, And All Their Botany Is Latin Names.

The Less A Man Thinks Or Knows About His Virtues, The Better We Like Him.

Earth Endures; Stars Abide.

Only A Biker Knows Why A Dog Sticks His Head Out Of A Car Window.

Wise Men Read Very Sharply All Your Private History In Your Look And Gait And Behavior. The Whole Economy Of Nature Is Bent On Expression. The Tell-tale Body Is All Tongues. Men Are Like Geneva Watches With Crystal Faces Which Expose The Whole Movement.

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

The Progress Of Religion Is Steadily To Its Identity With Morals. Strength Enters Just As Much As The Moral Element Prevails.

But It Is A Cold, Lifeless Business When You Go To The Shops To Buy Something, Which Does Not Represent Your Life And Talent, But A Goldsmith's.

Throw A Stone Into The Stream And The Ripples That Propagate Themselves Are The Beautiful Type Of All Influence.

The Rain Has Spoiled The Farmer's Day; Shall Sorrow Put My Books Away? Thereby Are Two Days Lost.

Religious Literature Has Eminent Examples, And If We Run Over Our Private List Of Poets, Critics, Philanthropists And Philosophers, We Shall Find Them Infected With This Dropsy And Elephantiasis, Which We Ought To Have Tapped.

Instead Of Making Christianity A Vehicle Of Truth, You Make Truth Only A Horse For Christianity.

Character Is An Invincible Force, Which Acts By Presence And Without Means

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

It All Begins When The Soul Would Have Its Way With You.

To Aim To Convert A Man By Miracles Is A Profanation Of The Soul.

Great Men Are They Who See That Spiritual Is Stronger Than Any Material Force - That Thoughts Rule The World.

The Vulgar Call Good Fortune That Which Really Is Produced By The Calculations Of Genius.

When I Walk Up The Piazza Of Santa Croce I Feel As If It Were Not A Florentine Nor An European Church But A Church Built By And For The Human Race.

Bring Me Wine, But Wine Which Never Grew In The Belly Of The Grape

Our Debt To Tradition Through Reading And Conversation Is So Massive, Our Protest So Rare And Insignificant-and This Commonly On The Ground Of Other Reading And Hearing-that In Large Sense, One Would Say There Is No Pure Originality. All Minds Quote. Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands. By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote. It Is As Difficult To Appropriate The Thoughts Of Others As It Is To Invent.

The Aristocrat Is The Democrat Ripe, And Gone To Seed.

As Men's Prayers Are A Disease Of The Will, So Are Their Creeds A Disease Of The Intellect.

Life Has No Memory. That Which Proceeds In Succession Might Be Remembered, But That Which Is Coexistent, Or Ejaculated From A Deeper Cause, As Yet Far From Being Conscious, Knows Not Its Own Tendency.

The Amount Of A Man's Wealth Consists In The Number Of Things He Can Do Without.

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

Nature Avenges Herself Speedily On The Hard Pedantry That Would Chain Her Waves. She Is No Literalist. Every Thing Must Be Taken Genially, And We Must Be At The Top Of Our Condition, To Understand Any Thing Rightly.

Though Love Repine, And Reason Chafe, There Came A Voice Without Reply,- "'tis Man's Perdition To Be Safe, When For The Truth He Ought To Die."

Prayer As A Means To Effect A Private End Is Theft And Meanness.

What's A Book? Everything Or Nothing. The Eye That Sees It All.

The Eyes Indicate The Antiquity Of The Soul.

Man Is Timid And Apologetic; He Is No Longer Upright; He Dares Not Say "i Think," "i Am," But Quotes Some Saint Or Sage.

Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Short Distances The Senses Are Despotic.

Imitation Cannot Go Above Its Model.

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

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity. All Men, All Things, The State, The Church, Yea The Friends Of The Heart Are Phantasms And Unreal Beside The Sanctuary Of The Heart. With So Much Awe, With So Much Fear, Let It Be Respected.

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.

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