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To Go Into Solitude, A Man Needs To Retire As Much From His Chamber As From Society. I Am Not Solitary Whilst I Read And Write, Though Nobody Is With Me. But If A Man Would Be Alone, Let Him Look At The Stars.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To Go Into Solitude,

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To Go Into Solitude, A Man Needs To Retire As Much From His Chamber As From Society. I Am Not Solitary Whilst I Read And Write, Though Nobody Is With Me. But If A Man Would Be Alone, Let Him Look At The Stars.

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In Youth, We Clothe Ourselves With Rainbows, With Hope & Love, & Go As Brave As The Zodiack. In Age We Put Out Another Sort Of Perspiration; Gout, Fever, Rheumatism, Caprice, Doubt, Fretting, And Avarice.

Far Off, Men Swell, Bully, And Threaten; Bring Them Hand To Hand, And They Are Feeble Folk.

We Are Never Without A Pilot. When We Know Not How To Steer, And Dare Not Hoist A Sail, We Can Drift. The Current Knows The Way, Though We Do Not. The Ship Of Heaven Guides Itself, And Will Not Accept A Wooden Rudder.

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

Life Is Not Intellectual Or Critical, But Sturdy. Its Chief Good Is For Well-mixed People Who Can Enjoy What They Find, Without Question.

The Secret Of Success In Society Is A Certain Heartiness And Sympathy.

Secret To Success

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.

Again, The Great Number Of Cultivated Men Keep Each Other Up To A High Standard. The Habit Of Meeting Well-read And Knowing Men Teaches The Art Of Omission And Selection.

The Teaching Of Politics Is That The Government, Which Was Set For Protection And Comfort Of All Good Citizens, Becomes The Principal Obstruction And Nuisance With Which We Have To Contend... The Cheat And Bully And Malefactor We Meet Everywhere Is The Government.

Virtue Alone Is Sweet Society, It Keeps The Key To All Heroic Hearts, And Opens You A Welcome In Them All.

In The Presence Of Nature, A Wild Delight Runs Through The Man, In Spite Of Real Sorrows.

If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being.

Self Esteem::"it Is Very Easy In The World To Live By The Opinion Of The World. It Is Very Easy In Solitude To Be Self-centered. But The Finished Man Is He Who In The Midst Of The Crowd Keeps With Perfect Sweetness The Independence Of Solitude. I Knew A Man Of Simple Habits And Earnest Character Who Never Put Out His Hands Nor Opened His Lips To Court The Public, And Having Survived Several Rotten Reputations Of Younger Men, Honor Came At Last And Sat Down With Him Upon His Private Bench From Which He Had Never Stirred."

The Times Are The Masquerade Of The Eternities; Trivial To The Dull, Tokens Of Noble And Majestic Agents To The Wise; The Receptacle In Which The Past Leaves Its History; The Quarry Out Of Which The Genius Of Today Is Building Up The Future.

In Order For One To Learn The Important Lessons Of Life, One Must First Overcome A Fear Each Day.

America Is A Country Of Young Men.

We, As We Read, Must Become Greeks, Romans, Turks, Priest And King, Martyr And Executioner; Must Fasten These Images To Some Reality In Our Secret Experience, Or We Shall Learn Nothing Rightly.

Manners Require Time, And Nothing Is More Vulgar Than Haste.

I Am Thankful For Small Mercies. I Compared Notes With One Of My Friends Who Expect Everything Of The Universe, And Is Disappointed When Anything Is Less Than The Best, And I Found That I Begin At The Other Extreme, Expecting Nothing, And Am Always Full Of Thanks For Moderate Good. . . . If We Will Take The Good We Find, . . . We Shall Have Heaping Measures. . . .

We Hear Eagerly Every Thought And Word Quoted From An Intellectual Man. But In His Presence Our Own Mind Is Roused To Activity, And We Forget Very Fast What He Says.

For Nonconformity The World Will Whip You With Its Displeasure.

All Is A Riddle, And The Key To A Riddle...is Another Riddle.

You Shall Not Come Nearer A Man By Getting Into His House.

When A Dog Is Chasing After You, Whistle For Him.

Natural Science Sharpens The Discrimination. There Is No False Logic In Nature. All Its Properties Are Permanent: The Acids And Metals Never Lie; Their Yea Is Yea, Their Nay, Nay. They Are Newly Discovered But Not New.

This Ennui, For Which We Saxons Had No Name,--this Word Of France, Has Got A Terrific Significance. It Shortens Life, And Bereaves The Day Of Its Light.

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

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.

We Must Trust Infinitely To The Beneficent Necessity Which Shines Through All Laws. Human Nature Expresses Itself In Them As Characteristically As In Statues, Or Songs, Or Railroads, And An Abstract Of The Codes Of Nations Would Be An Abstract Of The Common Conscience.

Pure By Impure Is Not Seen.

Although Knaves Win In Every Political Struggle, Although Society Seems To Be Delivered Over From The Hands Of One Set Of Criminals Into The Hands Of Another Set Of Criminals, As Fast As The Government Is Changed, And The March Of Civilization Is A Train Of Felonies, Yet, General Ends Are Somehow Answered.

A Man's Action Is Only A Poicture Book Of His Creed.

Don't Waste Life In Doubts And Fears; Spend Yourself On The Work Before You, Well Assured That The Right Performance Of This Hour's Duties Will Be The Best Preparation For The Hours And Ages That Will Follow It.

Nature Is No Spendthrift, But Takes The Shortest Way To Her Ends.

I Can Find My Biography In Every Fable That I Read.

You Think That Your Silence On Certain Topics, Perhaps In The Face Of Injustice, Or Unkindness, Or Mean-spiritedness, Causes Others To Reserve Judgement Of You. Far Otherwise; Your Silence Utters Very Loud: You Have No Oracle To Speak, No Wisdom To Offer, And Your Fellow Men Have Learned That You Cannot Help Them. Doth Not Wisdom Cry, And Understanding Put Forth Her Voice? We Would Be Well To Do Likewise.

A Man Should Give Us A Sense Of Mass.

Spurious Prudence, Making The Senses Final, Is The God Of Sots And Cowards, And Is The Subject Of All Comedy. It Is Nature's Joke, And Therefore Literature's. True Prudence Limits This Sensualism By Admitting The Knowledge Of An Internal And Real World.

A Fly Is As Untamable As A Hyena.

A Good Indignation Makes An Excellent Speech.

For This Present, Hard Is The Fortune Of The Bard, Born Out Of Time; All His Accomplishment, From Nature's Utmost Treasure Spent, Booteth Not Him.

Invention Breeds Invention. No Sooner Is The Electric Telegraph Devised Than Gutta-percha, The Very Material It Requires, Is Found. The Aeronaut Is Provided With Gun-cotton, The Very Fuel He Wants For His Balloon.

The Crystal Sphere Of Thought Is As Concentrical As The Geological Structure Of The Globe. As Our Soils And Rocks Lie In Strata, Concentric Strata, So Do All Men's Thinkings Run Laterally, Never Vertically.

We Talk Of Choosing Our Friends, But Friends Are Self-elected.

Open The Doors Of Opportunity To Talent And Virtue And They Will Do Themselves Justice, And Property Will Not Be In Bad Hands.

The Affections Cannot Keep Their Youth Any More Than Men.

As Long As Any Man Exists, There Is Some Need Of Him.

The Quality Of The Thought Differences The Egyptian And The Roman, The Austrian And The American.

I Like A Man Who Likes To See A Fine Barn As Well As A Good Tragedy.

Lose Yourself In Nature And Find Peace

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

Men Are Not Philosophers, But Are Rather Very Foolish Children, Who, By Reason Of Their Partiality, See Everything In The Most Absurd Manner, And Are The Victims At All Times Of The Nearest Object. There Is Even No Philosopher Who Is A Philosopher At All Times. Our Experience, Our Perception Is Conditioned By The Need To Acquire In Parts And In Succession, That Is, With Every Truth A Certain Falsehood.

At Times The Whole World Seems To Be In Conspiracy To Importune You With Emphatic Trifles. Friend, Client, Child, Sickness, Fear, Want, Charity, All Knock At Once At Thy Closet Door And Say,—'come Out Unto Us.' But Keep Thy State; Come Not Into Their Confusion. The Power Men Possess To Annoy Me I Give Them By A Weak Curiosity. No Man Can Come Near Me But Through My Act.

If Government Knew How, I Should Like To See It Check, Not Multiply, The Population. When It Reaches Its True Law Of Action, Every Man That Is Born Will Be Hailed As Essential.

No Picture Of Life Can Have Any Veracity That Does Not Admit The Odious Facts. A Man's Power Is Hooped In By A Necessity, Which, By Many Experiments, He Touches On Every Side, Until He Learns Its Arc.

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.

Life Is A Search After Power; And This Is An Element With Which The World Is So Saturated,-there Is No Chink Or Crevice In Which It Is Not Lodged,-that No Honest Seeking Goes Unrewarded.

Cultivate An Attitude Of Gratitude, Of Giving And Forgiving. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

No Law Can Be Sacred To Me But That Of My Nature.

Is It So Bad, Then, To Be Misunderstood? Pythagoras Was Misunderstood, And Socrates, And Jesus, And Luther, And Copernicus, And Galileo, And Newton, And Every Pure And Wise Spirit That Ever Took Flesh. To Be Great Is To Be Misunderstood.

Things Are In The Saddle. And Ride Mankind.

Transcendentalism

Of Lower States, Of Acts Of Routine And Sense, We Can Tell Somewhat; But The Masterpieces Of God, The Total Growths And Universalmovements Of The Soul, He Hideth; They Are Incalculable. I Can Know That Truth Is Divine And Helpful; But How It Shall Help Me I Can Have No Guess, For So To Be Is The Sole Inlet Of So To Know.

Speak As You Think, Be What You Are, Pay Your Debts Of All Kinds. I Prefer To Be Owned As Sound And Solvent, And My Word As Good As My Bond, And To Be What Cannot Be Skipped, Or Dissipated, Or Undermined, To All The Eclat In The Universe. This Reality Is The Foundation Of Friendship, Religion, Poetry, And Art.

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.

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

In A Virtuous Action, I Properly Am; In A Virtuous Act, I Add To The World; I Plant Into Deserts Conquered From Chaos And Nothing, And See The Darkness Receding On The Limits Of The Horizon.

The Enthusiast Always Finds The Master, The Masters, Whom He Seeks. Always Genius Seeks Genius, Desires Nothing So Much As To Be A Pupil And To Find Those Who Can Lend It Aid To Perfect Itself.

In Sculpture Did Ever Anybody Call The Apollo A Fancy Piece? Or Say Of The Laocoon How It Might Be Made Different? A Masterpiece Of Art Has In The Mind A Fixed Place In The Chain Of Being, As Much As A Plant Or A Crystal.

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.

The Time Will Come When The Evil Forms We Have Known Can No More Be Organized. Man's Culture Can Spare Nothing, Wants All Material. He Is To Convert All Impediments Into Instruments, All Enemies Into Power.

Time Dissipates To Shining Ether The Solid Angularity Of Facts.

Every Individual Nature Has Its Own Beauty. One Is Struck In Every Company, At Every Fireside, With The Riches Of Nature, When He Hears So Many New Tones, All Musical, Sees In Each Person Original Manners, Which Have A Proper And Peculiar Charm, And Reads New Expressions Of Face. He Perceives That Nature Has Laid For Each The Foundations Of A Divine Building, If The Soul Will Build Thereon.

God Has Delegated Himself To A Million Deputies.

Consistency Is The Bugbear That Frightens Little Minds.

The Selfish Man Suffers More From His Selfishness Than He From Whom That Selfishness Withholds Some Important Benefit.

No Man Thoroughly Understands A Truth Until He Has Contended Against It.

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

The Stupidity Of Men Always Invites The Insolence Of Power.

It Is The Quality Of The Moment, Not The Number Of Days, Or Events, Or Of Actors, That Imports.

There Is Some Reason To Believe That When A Man Does Not Write His Poetry It Escapes By Other Vents Through Him, Instead Of The One Vent Of Writing; Clings To His Form And Manners, Whilst Poets Have Often Nothing Poetical About Them Except Their Verses.

When At Last In A Race A New Principle Appears, An Idea--that Conserves It; Ideas Only Save Races.

For, The Sense Of Being Which In Calm Hours Rises, We Know Not How, In The Soul, Is Not Diverse From Things, From Space, From Light, From Time, From Man, But One With Them, And Proceeds Obviously From The Same Source Whence Their Life And Being Also Proceed. We First Share The Life By Which Things Exist, And Afterwards See Them As Appearances In Nature, And Forget That We Have Shared Their Cause. Here Is The Fountain Of Action And Of Thought.

Many A Man Had Taken The First Step. With Every Additional Step You Enhance Immensely The Value Of Your First.

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.

Look Out Into The July Night, And See The Broad Belt Of Silver Flame Which Flashes Up The Half Of Heaven, Fresh And Delicate As The Bonfires Of The Meadow-flies. Yet The Powers Of Numbers Cannot Compute Its Enormous Age,—lasting As Space And Time,—embosomed In Time And Space.

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

To Fill The Hour; That Is Happiness To Fill The Hour, And Leave No Crevice For A Repentance Or An Approval.

The French Woman Says, 'i Am A Woman And A Parisienne, And Nothing Foreign To Me Appears Altogether Human.'

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.

In The Great Books Of India, An Empire Spoke To Us, Nothing Small Or Unworthy, But Large, Serene, Consistent, The Voice Of An Old Intelligence, Which In Another Age And Climate Had Pondered And Thus Disposed Of The Questions That Exercise Us.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy.

Do The Thing And You Will Have The Power. But They That Do Not The Thing, Had Not The Power.

The Creation Of A Thousand Forests Is In One Acorn.

Thought Makes Everything Fit For Use.

As Long As Civilization Is Essentially One Of Property, Of Fences, Of Exclusiveness, It Will Be Mocked By Delusions. Our Riches Will Leave Us Sick; There Will Be Bitterness In Our Laughter, And Our Wine Will Burn Our Mouth. Only That Good Profits Which We Can Taste With All Doors Open, And Which Serves All Men.

The Reason Why All Men Honor Love Is Because It Looks Up, And Not Down; Aspires And Not Despairs.

I Once Heard A Preacher Who Sorely Tempted Me To Go To Church No More.

The World Is Plentiful With Honey, But Only The Humble Bee Can Collect It.

Eloquence Is The Power To Translate A Truth Into Language Perfectly Intelligible To The Person To Whom You Speak.

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

How Cunningly Nature Hides Every Wrinkle Of Her Inconceivable Antiquity Under Roses And Violets And Morning Dew!

The Last Change In Our Point Of View Gives The Whole World A Pictorial Air.

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.

Good Writing Is A Kind Of Skating Which Carries Off The Performer Where He Would Not Go, And Is Only Right Admirable When To All Its Beauty And Speed A Subserviency To The Will, Like That Of Walking, Is Added.

Beauty Through My Senses Stole; I Yielded Myself To The Perfect Whole.

Let Not The Author Eat Up The Man, So That He Shall Be All Balcony And No House.

Intellect Annuls Fate. So Far As A Man Thinks He Is Free.

Labor Is God's Education.

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.

Why Should Not We Have A Poetry And Philosophy Of Insight And Not Of Tradition, And A Religion By Revelation To Us, And Not The History Of Theirs?

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.

When Fear Enters The Heart Of A Man At Hearing The Names Of Candidates And The Reading Of Laws That Are Proposed, Then Is The State Safe, But When These Things Are Heard Without Regard, As Above Or Below Us, Then Is The Commonwealth Sick Or Dead.

If We Consider What Happens In Conversation, In Reveries, In Remorse, In Times Of Passion, In Surprises, In The Instructions Of Dreams, Wherein Often We See Ourselves In Masquerade,--the Droll Disguises Only Magnifying And Enhancing A Real Element, And Forcing It On Our Distinct Notice,--we Shall Catch Many Hints That Will Broaden And Lighten Into Knowledge Of The Secret Of Nature.

All The Great Ages Have Been Ages Of Belief.

Consider What You Have In The Smallest Chosen Library. A Company Of The Wisest And Wittiest Men That Could Be Picked Out Of All Civil Countries, In A Thousand Years, Have Set In Best Order The Results Of Their Learning And Wisdom.

Cause And Effect Are Two Sides Of One Fact.

Power Dwells With Cheerfulness.

Positive Attitude

Take The Place And Attitude To Which You See Your Unquestionable Right, And All Men Acquiesce.

Accept The Place The Divine Providence Has Found For You, The Society Of Your Contemporaries, The Connection Of Events.

Let Us Take Our Bloated Nothingness Out Of The Path Of The Divine Circuits.

More Than The Diamond Koh-i-noor, Which Glitters Among Their Crown Jewels, They Prize The Dull Pebble Which Is Wiser Than A Man, Whose Poles Turn Themselves To The Poles Of The World, And Whose Axis Is Parallel To The Axis Of The World. Now, Their Toys Are Steam And Galvanism.

Every Man In His Lifetime Needs To Thank His Faults.

Love, Which Is The Essence Of God, Is Not For Levity, But For The Total Worth Of Man.

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

The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance.

We Read Often With As Much Talent As We Write.

It Is The Doctrine Of The Popular Music-masters, That Whoever Can Speak Can Sing. So, Probably, Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life. Our Temperaments Differ In Capacity Of Heat, Or

It Is The Secret Of The World That All Things Subsist And Do Not Die, But Only Retire A Little From Sight And Afterward Return Again.

A Man Of Good Sense But Of Little Faith, Whose Compassion Seemed To Lead Him To Church As Often As He Went There, Said To Me; 'that He Liked To Have Concerts, And Fairs, And Churches, And Other Public Amusements Go On.

The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficient Distance, And It Straightens Itself To The Average Tendency. Your Genuine Action Will Explain Itself, And Will Explain Your Other Genuine Actions. Your Conformity Explains Nothing. Act Singly, And What You Have Already Done Singly Will Justify You Now. Greatness Appeals To The Future.

The Permanence Of All Books Is Fixed By No Effort Friendly Or Hostile, But By Their Own Specific Gravity, Or The Intrinsic Importance Of Their Contents To The Constant Mind Of Man.

The Mind Does Not Create What It Perceives, Any More Than The Eye Creates The Rose.

The Man Is Only Half Himself, The Other Half Is His Expression.

To The Young Mind Every Thing Is Individual, Stands By Itself. By And By, It Finds How To Join Two Things And See In Them One Nature; Then Three, Then Three Thousand; And So, Tyrannized Over By Its Own Unifying Instinct, It Goes On Tying Things Together, Diminishing Anomalies, Discovering Roots Running Under Ground Whereby Contrary And Remote Things Cohere And Flower Out From One Stem.

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.

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year. No Man Has Learned Anything Rightly, Until He Knows That Every Day Is Doomsday.

Inspirational Life

People Do Not Deserve To Have Good Writing, They Are So Pleased With Bad.

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

One Single Idea May Have Greater Weight Than All The Men, Animals, And Machines For A Century.

The Faith That Stands On Authority Is Not Faith.

When The Vain Speaker Has Sat Down, And The People Say 'what A Good Speech,' It Still Takes An Ounce To Balance An Ounce.

But We Need Not Fear That We Can Lose Any Thing By The Progress Of The Soul. The Soul May Be Trusted To The End.

People Say Law But They Mean Wealth.

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

The Fatal Trait Of The Times Is The Divorce Between Religion And Morality.

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

The Wise Through Excess Of Wisdom Is Made A Fool.

The Senses Interfere Everywhere, And Mix Their Own Structure With All They Report Of.

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

I Cannot Marry The Facts Of William Shakespeare To His Verse: Other Men Had Led Lives In Some Sort Of Keeping With Their Thought, But This Man Is In Wide Contrast.

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.

We Pass For What We Are.

Power Is What They Want, Not Candy-power To Execute Their Design, Power To Give Legs And Feet, Form And Actuality To Their Thought; Which, To A Clear-sighted Man, Appears The End For Which The Universe Exists, And All Its Resources Might Be Well Applied.

Other Men Are Lenses Through Which We Read Our Own Minds. Each Man Seeks Those Of Different Quality From His Own, And Such As Are Good Of Their Kind; That Is, He Seeks Other Men, And The Rest.

A Right Rule For A Club Would Be, Admit No Man Whose Presence Excludes Any One Topic. It Requires People Who Are Not Surprised Andshocked, Who Do And Let Do, And Let Be, Who Sink Trifles, And Know Solid Values, And Who Take A Great Deal For Granted.

For Every Grain Of Wit There Is A Grain Of Folly.

Plant Your Dreams And Miracles Will Grow.

Every Hero Becomes A Bore At Last.

The Arts And Inventions Of Each Period Are Only Its Costume, And Do Not Invigorate Men.

The Days Are Made On A Loom Whereof The Warp And Woof Are Past And Future Time. They Are Majestically Dressed, As If Every God Brought A Thread To The Skyey Web.

The Eye Of Prudence May Never Shut.

Do The Thing And You Will Have The Power.

They Think Him The Best Dressed Man, Whose Dress Is So Fit For His Use That You Cannot Notice Or Remember To Describe It.

All Sensible People Are Selfish, And Nature Is Tugging At Every Contract To Make The Terms Of It Fair.

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.

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

A Man Cannot Utter Two Or Three Sentences Without Disclosing To Intelligent Ears Precisely Where He Stands In Life And Thought, Whether In The Kingdom Of The Senses And The Understanding, Or In That Of Ideas And Imagination, Or In The Realm Of Intuitions And Duty.

Every Man Is A Borrower And A Mimic, Life Is Theatrical And Literature A Quotation.

We Are Disgusted By Gossip; Yet It Is Of Importance To Keep The Angels In Their Proprieties.

Immortality. I Notice That As Soon As Writers Broach This Question They Begin To Quote. I Hate Quotation. Tell Me What You Know.

A Sage Is The Instructor Of A Hundred Ages.

Life Itself Is ... A Sleep Within A Sleep.

Many Eyes Go Through The Meadow, But Few See The Flowers In It

Our Expense Is Almost All For Conformity. It Is For Cake That We Run In Debt; 'tis Not The Intellect, Not The Heart, Not Beauty, Not Worship, That Costs So Much.

Teach The Children! It Is Painting In Fresco.

He In Whom The Love Of Repose Predominates Will Accept The First Creed, The First Philosophy, The First Political Party He Meets — Most Likely His Father's. He Gets Rest, Commodity, And Reputation; But He Shuts The Door Of Truth.

The Writer, Like A Priest, Must Be Exempted From Secular Labor. His Work Needs A Frolic Health; He Must Be At The Top Of His Condition.

I Like Sayers Of No Better Than I Like Sayers Of Yes.

Outside Among Your Fellows, Among Strangers, You Must Preserve Appearances, A Hundred Things You Cannot Do; But Inside, The Terrible Freedom.

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?

The Consciousness In Each Man Is A Sliding Scale, Which Identifies Him Now With The First Cause, And Now With The Flesh Of His Body; Life Above Life, In Infinite Degrees.

In Youth, We Clothe Ourselves With Rainbows, And Go As Brave As The Zodiac.

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

If It Costs Ten Years, And Ten To Recover The General Prosperity, The Destruction Of The South Is Worth So Much.

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

Successful People Live Well, Laugh Often, And Love Much. They've Filled A Niche And Accomplished Tasks So As To Leave The World Better Than They Found It, While Looking For The Best In Others, And Giving The Best They Have.

It Is Noticed, That The Consideration Of The Great Periods And Spaces Of Astronomy Induces A Dignity Of Mind, And An Indifferenceto Death.

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

Health Is The First Muse, And Sleep Is The Condition To Produce It.

The Young Men Were Born With Knives In Their Brain, A Tendency To Introversion, Self-dissection, Anatomizing Of Motives.

As Long As A Man Stands In His Own Way, Everything Seems To Be In His Way.

Thought Is The Seed Of Action; But Action Is As Much Its Second Form As Thought Is Its First. It Rises In Thought, To The End That It May Be Uttered And Acted. Always In Proportion To The Depth Of Its Sense Does It Knock Importunately At The Gates Of The Soul, To Be Spoken, To Be Done.

The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most. The Power Which The Sea Requires In The Sailor Makes A Man Of Him Very Fast, And The Change Of Shores And Population Clears His Head Of Much Nonsense Of His Wigwam.

The Wise Man In The Storm Prays God Not For Safety From Danger But For Deliverance From Fear. It Is The Storm Within Which Endangers Him[,] Not The Storm Without.

No One Can Read The History Of Astronomy Without Perceiving That Copernicus, Newton, Laplace, Are Not New Men, Or A New Kind Of Men, But That Thales, Anaximenes, Hipparchus, Empodocles, Aristorchus, Pythagorus, Oenipodes, Had Anticipated Them.

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

Let Us Be Poised, Wise And Our Own Today.

Beauty Rests On Necessities.

It Is Commonly Said By Farmers, That A Good Pear Or Apple Costs No More Time Or Pains To Rear, Than A Poor One; So I Would Have No Work Of Art, No Speech, Or Action, Or Thought, Or Friend, But The Best.

Nature Is Not Always Tricked In Holiday Attire, But The Same Scene Which Yesterday Breathed Perfume And Glittered As For The Frolic Of The Nymphs, Is Overspread With Melancholy Today. Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit.

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Nouriel Roubini

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