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Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise. Our First Journeys Discover To Us The Indifference Of Places. At Home I Dream That At Naples, At Rome, I Can Be Intoxicated With Beauty, And Lose My Sadness. I Pack My Trunk, Embrace My Friends, Embark On The Sea, And At Last Wake Up In Naples, And There Beside Me Is The Stern Fact, The Sad Self, Unrelenting, Identical, That I Fled From. I Seek The Vatican, And The Palaces. I Affect To Be Intoxicated With Sights And Suggestions, But I Am Not Intoxicated. My Giant Goes With Me Wherever I Go.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Traveling Is A Fool's

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise. Our First Journeys Discover To Us The Indifference Of Places. At Home I Dream That At Naples, At Rome, I Can Be Intoxicated With Beauty, And Lose My Sadness. I Pack My Trunk, Embrace My Friends, Embark On The Sea, And At Last Wake Up In Naples, And There Beside Me Is The Stern Fact, The Sad Self, Unrelenting, Identical, That I Fled From. I Seek The Vatican, And The Palaces. I Affect To Be Intoxicated With Sights And Suggestions, But I Am Not Intoxicated. My Giant Goes With Me Wherever I Go.

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If The Single Man Plant Himself Indomitably On His Instincts, And There Abide, The Huge World Will Come Round To Him.

The Solitary Knows The Essence Of The Thought, The Scholar In Society Only Its Fair Face.

If A Man's Eye Is On The Eternal, His Intellect Will Grow.

The Sea, Washing The Equator And The Poles, Offers Its Perilous Aid, And The Power And Empire That Follow It... ''beware Of Me,'' It Says, ''but If You Can Hold Me, I Am The Key To All The Lands.

That Which Dominates Our Imagination And Our Thoughts Will Determine Our Life And Character.

The Yankee Is One Who, If He Once Gets His Teeth Set On A Thing, All Creation Can't Make Him Let Go.

Therefore We Value The Poet. All The Argument And All The Wisdom Is Not In The Encyclopedia, Or The Treatise On Metaphysics, Or The Body Of Divinity, But In The Sonnet Or The Play.

Wherever The Truth Is Injured, Defend It.

We Say That Every Man Is Entitled To Be Valued By His Best Moment. We Measure Our Friends So. We Know, They Have Intervals Of Folly, Whereof We Take No Heed, But Wait The Reappearings Of The Genius, Which Are Sure And Beautiful.

The True Test Of Civilization Is Not The Census, Nor The Size Of Cities, Nor The Crops - No, But The Kind Of Man The Country Turns Out.

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.

All Men Are In Some Degree Impressed By The Face Of The World; Some Men Even To Delight. This Love Of Beauty Is Taste. Others Have The Same Love In Such Success That, Not Content With Admiring, They Seek To Embody It In New Forms. The Creation Of Beauty Is Art.

I Have Come To Believe That The Whole World Is An Enigma, A Harmless Enigma That Is Made Terrible By Our Own Mad Attempt To Interpret It As Though It Had An Underlying Truth. If Two Or Three Persons Should Come With A High Spiritual Aim And With Great Powers, The World Would Fall Into Their Hands Like A Ripe Peach.

Is Not Prayer A Study Of Truth, A Sally Of The Soul Into The Unfound Infinite? No Man Ever Prayed Heartily Without Learning Something.

We Are Always Getting Ready To Live But Never Living.

Law Of Attraction

We Sometimes Meet An Original Gentleman, Who, If Manners Had Not Existed, Would Have Invented Them.

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.

An Individual Is An Encloser. Time And Space, Liberty And Necessity, Truth And Thought, Are Left At Large No Longer.

There Will Be An Agreement In Whatever Variety Of Actions, So They Be Each Honest And Natural In Their Hour. For Of One Will, The Actions Will Be Harmonious, However Unlike They Seem. These Varieties Are Lost Sight Of At A Little Distance, At A Little Height Of Thought. One Tendency Unites Them All. 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.

Nature And Books Belong To The Eyes That See Them.

To The Body And Mind Which Have Been Cramped By Noxious Work Or Company, Nature Is Medicinal And Restores Their Tone. The Tradesman, The Attorney Comes Out Of The Din And Craft Of The Street And Sees The Sky And The Woods, And Is A Man Again. In Their Eternal Calm, He Finds Himself.

I Do Not Wish To Remove From My Present Prison To A Prison A Little Larger. I Wish To Break All Prisons.

Writing Should Be The Settlement Of Dew On The Leaf.

What Is The City In Which We Sit Here, But An Aggregate Of Incongruous Materials, Which Have Obeyed The Will Of Some Man?

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

The World Is Always Childish, And With Each New Gewgaw Of A Revolution Or New Constitution That It Finds, Thinks It Shall Never Cry Any More.

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

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

Since Everything In Nature Answers To A Moral Power, If Any Phenomenon Remains Brute And Dark, It Is That The Corresponding Faculty In The Observer Is Not Yet Active.

The Writer Is An Explorer. Every Step Is An Advance Into A New Land.

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.

Wise Cultivated, Genial Conversation Is The Last Flower Of Civilization, And The Best Result Which Life Has To Offer Us,--a Cup For Gods, Which Has No Repentance. Conversation Is Our Account Of Ourselves. All We Have, All We Can, All We Know, Is Brought Into Play, And As The Reproduction In Finer Form, Of All Our Havings.

Our Fear Of Death Is Like Our Fear That Summer Will Be Short, But When We Have Had Our Swing Of Pleasure, Our Fill Of Fruit, And Our Swelter Of Heat, We Say We Have Had Our Day.

There Is Nothing We Value And Hunt And Cultivate And Strive To Draw To Us, But In Some Hour We Turn And Rend It.

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

The Sky Is The Daily Bread Of The Eyes.

Each Is Liable To Panic, Which Is Exactly, The Terror Of Ignorance Surrendered To The Imagination. Knowledge Is The Encourager, Knowledge That Takes Fear Out Of The Heart, Knowledge And Use, Which Is Knowledge In Practice. They Can Conquer Who Believe They Can. It Is He Who Has Done The Deed Once Who Does Not Shrink From Attempting Again.

The World Exists, As I Understand It, To Teach The Science Of Liberty.

All Poets Have Signalized Their Consciousness Of Rare Moments When They Were Superior To Themselves, -when A Light, A Freedom, A Power Came To Them Which Lifted Them To Performances Far Better Than They Could Reach At Other Times.

Any Relation To The Land, The Habit Of Tilling It, Or Mining It, Or Even Hunting On It, Generates The Feeling Of Patriotism. He Who Keeps Shop On It, Or He Who Merely Uses It As A Support To His Desk And Ledger, Or To His Manufactory, Values It Less.

Virtues Are, In The Popular Estimate, Rather The Exception Than The Rule. There Is The Man And His Virtues.

God Hides Things By Putting Them Near Us.

All My Hurts My Garden Spade Can Heal.

A Man In Pursuit Of Greatness Feels No Little Wants.

Nature Is A Mutable Cloud Which Is Always And Never The Same.

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

Why Should You Renounce Your Right To Traverse The Star-lit Deserts Of Truth, Of The Premature Comforts Of An Acre, House, And Barn? Truth Also Has Its Roof, And Bed, And Board.

Your Actions Speak So Loud, I Can't Hear What You Say.

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

A Few Years Ago, The Liberal Churches Complained That The Calvinistic Church Denied To Them The Name Of Christian. I Think The Complaint Was Confession; A Religious Church Would Not Complain.

Higher Than The Question Of Our Duration Is The Question Of Our Deserving. Immortality Will Come To Such As Are Fit For It, And He Would Be A Great Soul In Future Must Be A Great Soul Now.

Rings And Jewels Are Not Gifts, But Apologies For Gifts. The Only Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself. Thou Must Bleed For Me. Therefore The Poet Brings His Poem; The Shepherd, His Lamb; The Farmer, Corn; The Miner, A Stone; The Painter, His Picture; The Girl, A Handkerchief Of Her Own Sewing.

There Is Always A Best Way Of Doing Everything.

What Has Been Done In The World - The Works Of Genius - Cost Nothing. There Is No Painful Effort, But It Is The Spontaneous Flowing Of The Thought. Shakespeare Made His Hamlet As A Bird Weaves Its Nest.

The Course Of Everything Goes To Teach Us Faith.

We Must Learn The Language Of Facts. The Most Wonderful Inspirations Die With Their Subject, If He Has No Hand To Paint Them To The Senses.

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

Be A Little Careful About Your Library. Do You Foresee What You Will Do With It? Very Little To Be Sure. But The Real Question Is What It Will Do With You? You Will Come Here And Get Books That Will Open Your Eyes, And Your Ears, And Your Curiosity, And Turn You Inside Out Or Outside In.

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

Greek Architecture Is The Flowering Of Geometry.

Talents Differ; All Is Well And Wisely Put; If I Cannot Carry Forests On My Back, Neither Can You Crack A Nut.

Four Snakes Gliding Up And Down A Hollow For No Purpose That I Could See - Not To Eat, Not For Love, But Only Gliding.

Beauty Is The Virtue Of The Body As Virtue Is The Beauty Of The Soul

The Best Part Of Health Is Fine Disposition

Valor Consists In The Power Of Self-recovery, So That A Man Cannot Have His Flank Turned, Cannot Be Out-generalled, But Put Him Where You Will, He Stands.

I Dip My Pen In The Blackest Ink, Because I'm Not Afraid Of Falling Into My Inkpot.

New York Is A Sucked Orange.

You Cannot Do Wrong Without Suffering Wrong.

Steam Was Till The Other Day The Devil Which We Dreaded. Every Pot Made By Any Human Potter Or Brazier Had A Hole In Its Cover, To Let Off The Enemy, Lest He Should Lift Pot And Roof And Carry The House Away.

When A Man Meets His Make, Society Begins.

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

The Way To Mend The Bad World Is To Create The Right World.

Thefts Never Enrich; Alms Never Impoverish; Murder Will Speak Out Of Stone Walls. The Least Admixture Of A Lie-for Example, The Taint Of Vanity, The Least Attempt To Make A Good Impression, A Favorable Appearance-will Instantly Vitiate The Effect.

A Home Kept To The End Of Display Is Impossible To All But A Few Women, And Their Success Is Dearly Bought.

Let Not A Man Guard His Dignity, But Let His Dignity Guard Him.

Yet Things Are Knowable! They Are Knowable, Because, Being From One, Things Correspond. There Is A Scale: And The Correspondence Of Heaven To Earth, Of Matter To Mind, Of The Part To The Whole, Is Our Guide. As There Is A Science Of Stars, Called Astronomy; And Science Of Quantities, Called Mathematics; A Science Of Qualities, Called Chemistry; So There Is A Science Of Sciences,--i Call It Dialectic,--which Is The Intellect Discriminating The False And The True.

A True Man Belongs To No Other Time Or Place, But Is The Center Of Things.

All Great Men Come Out Of The Middle Classes.

When The Spirit Is Not Master Of The World, Then It Is Its Dupe.

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

Everything Teaches Transition, Transference, Metamorphosis: Therein Is Human Power, In Transference, Not In Creation; & Therein Is Human Destiny, Not In Longevity But In Removal. We Dive & Reappear In New Places.

There Is Nothing In History To Parallel The Influence Of Jesus Christ.

[gratitude Is] The Cheerfulness Of Wisdom.

No Nation Has Produced Anything Like His Equal. There Is No Quality In The Human Mind, There Is No Class Of Topics, There Is No Region Of Thought, In Which He Has Not Soared Or Descended, And None In Which He Has Not Said The Commanding Word.

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

Work And Acquire, And Thou Hast Chained The Wheel Of Chance.

Self-trust Is The First Secret Of Success, The Belief That If You Are Here The Authorities Of The Universe Put You Here, And For Cause, Or With Some Task Strictly Appointed You In Your Constitution, And So Long As You Work At That You Are Well And Successful

Governments Have Their Origin In The Moral Identity Of Men.

Though Thou Loved Her As Thyself, As A Self Of Purer Clay, Tho' Her Parting Dims The Day, Stealing Grace From All Alive, Heartily Know, When Half-gods Go, The Gods Arrive.

Ideas Must Work Through The Brains And The Arms Of Good And Brave Men Or They Are No Better Than Dreams.

The Highest Revelation Is That God Is In Every Man.

If A Man Sits Down To Think, He Is Immediately Asked If He Has A Headache.

We Learn That God Is; That He Is In Me; And That All Things Are Shadows Of Him.

I Hate The Giving Of The Hand Unless The Whole Man Accompanies It.

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 Dice Of God Are Always Loaded.

My Companion Assumes To Know My Mood And Habit Of Thought, And We Go On From Explanation To Explanation, Until All Is Said That Words Can, And We Leave Matters Just As They Were At First, Because Of That Vicious Assumption.

When The Literary Class Betray A Destitution Of Faith, It Is Not Strange That Society Should Be Disheartened And Sensualized By Unbelief.

Insist Upon Yourself. Be Original.

Funny Basketball

A Beautiful Soul Always Dwells In A Beautiful World.

The World Still Wants Its Poet-priest, A Reconciler, Who Shall Not Trifle With Shakspeare The Player, Nor Shall Grope In Graves With Swedenborg The Mourner; But Who Shall See, Speak, And Act, With Equal Inspiration. For Knowledge Will Brighten The Sunshine; Right Is More Beautiful Than Private Affection; And Love Is Compatible With Universal Wisdom.

A Painter Told Me That Nobody Could Draw A Tree Without In Some Sort Becoming A Tree.

The True Artist Has The Planet For His Pedestal; The Adventurer, After Years Of Strife, Has Nothing Broader Than His Shoes.

The Life Of Man Is The True Romance, Which When It Is Valiantly Conduced, Will Yield The Imagination A Higher Joy Than Any Fiction.

The First Farmer Was The First Man, And All Historic Nobility Rests On Possession And Use Of Land.

The Measure Of Action Is The Sentiment From Which It Proceeds. The Greatest Action May Easily Be One Of The Most Private Circumstance.

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.

Congratulate Yourself If You Have Done Something Strange, Extravagant And Broken The Monotony.

Fear God, And Where You Go Men Shall Think They Walk In Hallowed Cathedrals.

The Church Seems To Totter To Its Fall, Almost All Life Extinct. On This Occasion, Any Complaisance Would Be Criminal Which Told You, Whose Hope And Commission It Is To Preach The Faith Of Christ, That The Faith Of Christ Is Preached.

Do Not Require A Description Of The Countries Towards Which You Sail. The Description Does Not Describe Them To You, And To- Morrow You Arrive There, And Know Them By Inhabiting Them.

Our Strength Grows Out Of Our Weakness.

Tis The Good Reader That Makes The Good Book.

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things; Each Once A Stroke Of Genius Or Of Love, Now Repeated And Hardened Into Usage.

As Long As Our Civilization Is Essentially One Of Property, Of Fences, Of Exclusiveness, It Will Be Mocked By Delusions.

The Astonishment Of Life Is The Absence Of Any Appearances Of Reconciliation Between The Theory And The Practice Of Life.

A Man Should Learn To Detect And Watch That Gleam Of Light Which Flashes Across His Mind From Within, More Than The Luster Of The Firmament Of Bards And Sages

Who Loses A Day Loses Life.

The Hero Is He Who Is Immovably Centered.

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men. Every Man Is An Inlet To The Same And To All Of The Same. He That Is Once Admitted To The Right Of Reason Is Made A Freeman Of The Whole Estate. What Plato Has Thought, He May Think; What A Saint Has Felt, He May Feel; What At Any Time Has Befallen Any Man, He Can Understand. Who Hath Access To This Universal Mind Is A Party To All That Is Or Can Be Done, For This Is The Only And Sovereign Agent

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

To Finish The Moment, To Find The Journey's End In Every Step Of The Road, To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours, Is Wisdom.

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

Put God In Your Debt. Every Stroke Shall Be Repaid. The Longer The Payment Is With-held, The Better For You; For Compound Interest On Compound Interest Is The Rate And Usage Of This Exchequer.

All Vigor Is Contagious.

We All Need Someone Who Can Help Us Do What We Already Can.

Wise Men Read Very Sharply All Of Your Private History In Your Look And Gait And Behavior.

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.

Religionists Are Clinging To Little, Positive, Verbal, Formal Versions Of The Moral Law... While The Laws Of The Law, The Great Circling Truths Whose Only Adequate Symbol Is The Material Laws, The Astronomy Etc. Are All Unobserved, And Sneered At When Spoken Of.

Infancy Conforms To Nobody; All Conform To It.

No Orator Can Top The One Who Can Give Good Nicknames.

The Highest Compact We Can Make With Our Fellow Is - "let There Be Truth Between Us Two Forevermore."

The Soul Is Not Born; It Does Not Die; It Was Not Produced From Anyone Unborn, Eternal, It Is Not Slain, Though The Body Is Slain.

A Man In The Wrong May More Easily Be Convinced Than One Half Right.

As The Gardener, By Severe Pruning, Forces The Sap Of The Tree Into One Or Two Vigorous Limbs, So Should You Stop Off Your Miscellaneous Activity And Concentrate Your Force On One Or A Few Points.

Great Is The Art, Great Be The Manners, Of The Bard. He Shall Not His Brain Encumber With The Coil Of Rhythm And Number; But, Leaving Rule And Pale Forethought, He Shall Aye Climb For His Rhyme. "pass In, Pass In," The Angels Say

Genius Seems To Consistent Merely In Trueness Of Sight.

Women See Better Than Men. Men See Lazily, If They Do Not Expect To Act. Women See Quite Without Any Wish To Act.

Art Is The Need To Create; But In Its Essence, Immense And Universal, It Is Impatient Of Working With Lame Or Tied Hands, And Of Making Cripples And Monsters, Such As All Pictures And Statues Are. Nothing Less Than The Creation Of Man And Nature Is Its End.

Meek Young Men Grow Up In Colleges And Believe It Is Their Duty To Accept The Views Which Books Have Given, And Grow Up Slaves.

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

There Is Some Awe Mixed With The Joy Of Our Surprise, When This Poet, Who Lived In Some Past World, Two Or Three Hundred Years Ago, Says That Which Lies Close To My Own Soul, That Which I Also Had Wellnigh Thought And Said.

God Will Not Make Himself Manifest To Cowards

A Child Is A Curly, Dimpled Lunatic.

Out Of Love And Hatred, Out Of Earnings And Borrowings And Leadings And Losses; Out Of Sickness And Pain; Out Of Wooing And Worshipping; Out Of Traveling And Voting And Watching And Caring; Out Of Disgrace And Contempt, Comes Our Tuition In The Serene And Beautiful Laws.

I Would Study, I Would Know, I Would Admire Forever.

I Am Ashamed To See What A Shallow Village Tale Our So-called History Is. How Many Times Must We Say Rome, And Paris, And Constantinople! What Does Rome Know Of Rat And Lizard? What Are Olympiads And Consulates To These Neighboring Systems Of Being? Nay, What Food Or Experience Or Succor Have They For The Esquimaux Seal-hunter, Or The Kanaka In His Canoe, For The Fisherman, The Stevedore, The Porter?

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.

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

No Man Has A Right Perception Of Any Truth, Who Has Not Been Reacted On By It, So As To Be Ready To Be Its Martyr.

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise. Our First Journeys Discover To Us The Indifference Of Places. At Home I Dream That At Naples, At Rome, I Can Be Intoxicated With Beauty, And Lose My Sadness. I Pack My Trunk, Embrace My Friends, Embark On The Sea, And At Last Wake Up In Naples, And There Beside Me Is The Stern Fact, The Sad Self, Unrelenting, Identical, That I Fled From. I Seek The Vatican, And The Palaces. I Affect To Be Intoxicated With Sights And Suggestions, But I Am Not Intoxicated. My Giant Goes With Me Wherever I Go.

Intemperance Is The Only Vulgarity.

Beauty Brings Its Own Fancy Price, For All That A Man Hath Will He Give For His Love.

Illusion, Temperament, Succession, Surface, Surprise, Reality, Subjectiveness,--these Are The Threads On The Loom Of Time, These Are The Lords Of Life.

Of Nature Itself Upon The Soul; The Sunrise, The Haze Of Autumn, The Winter Starlight Seem Interlocutors; The Prevailing Sense Is That Of An Exposition In Poetry; A High Discourse, The Voice Of The Speaker Seems To Breathe As Much From The Landscape As From His Own Breast; It Is Nature Communing With The Seer.

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

This Time, Like All Times, Is A Very Good One, If We But Know What To Do With It.

We Take Care Of Our Health; We Lay Up Money; We Make Our Roof Tight, And Our Clothing Sufficient; But Who Provides Wisely That He Shall Not Be Wanting In The Best Property Of All, -friends?

We Pray To Be Conventional. But The Wary Heaven Takes Care You Shall Not Be, If There Is Anything Good In You. Dante Was Very Badcompany, And Was Never Invited To Dinner.

Trust Thyself: Every Heart Vibrates To That Iron String.

Mysticism Is The Mistake Of An Accidental And Individual Symbol For An Universal One.

The Three Practical Rules, Then, Which I Have To Offer, Are, --/ Never Read A Book That Is Not A Year Old./ Never Read Any But The Famed Books./ Never Read Any But What You Like.

It Is Long Ere We Discover How Rich We Are. Our History, We Are Sure, Is Quite Tame: We Have Nothing To Write, Nothing To Infer. But Our Wiser Years Still Run Back To The Despised Recollections Of Childhood. . . .

Make The Most Of Yourself, For That Is All There Is Of You.

The Poet Knows That He Speaks Adequately, Then, Only When He Speaks Somewhat Wildly.

I Wish To Write Such Rhymes As Shall Not Suggest A Restraint, But Contrariwise The Wildest Freedom.

Popularity Is For Dolls.

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

We Do Not Count A Man's Years Until He Has Nothing Else To Count.

I Wish That Life Should Not Be Cheap, But Sacred. I Wish The Days To Be As Centuries, Loaded, Fragrant.

Freedom Is Not The Right To Do As You Please, But The Liberty To Do As You Should.

In The Uttermost Meaning Of The Words, Thought Is Devout, And Devotion Is Thought. Deep Calls Unto Deep.

Words Are Finite Organs Of The Infinite Mind. They Cannot Cover The Dimensions Of What Is In Truth. They Break, Chop, And Impoverish It.

I Remember The Thought Which Occurred To Me When Some Ingenious And Spiritual Foreigners Came To America, Was, Have You Been Victimized In Being Brought Hither?--or, Prior To That, Answer Me This, "are You Victimizable?

The Gift, To Be True, Must Be The Flowing Of The Giver Unto Me, Correspondent To My Flowing Unto Him.

Dream Delivers Us To Dream, And There Is No End To Illusion. Life Is Like A Train Of Moods Like A String Of Beads, And, As We Pass Through Them, They Prove To Be Many-colored Lenses Which Paint The World Their Own Hue. . . .

Flowers... Are A Proud Assertion That A Ray Of Beauty Outvalues All The Utilities Of The World.

Great Men Are More Distinguished By Range And Extent Than By Originality.

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.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions. All Life Is An Experiment. The More Experiments You Make The Better. What If They Are A Little Coarse And You May Get Your Coat Soiled Or Torn? What If You Do Fail, And Get Fairly Rolled In The Dirt Once Or Twice? Up Again, You Shall Never Be So Afraid Of A Tumble.

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

The Piety Of The Hebrew Prophets Purges Their Grossness. The Circumcision Is An Example Of The Power Of Poetry To Raise The Low And Offensive.

Every Materialist Will Be An Idealist; But An Idealist Can Never Go Backward To Be A Materialist.

Henceforth, Please God, Forever I Forego The Yolk Of Men's Opinions. I Will Be Light-hearted As A Bird And Live With God. I Find Him In The Bottom Of My Heart, And I Hear Continually His Voice Therein.

Life Is Not Measured By Its Length, But By Its Depth.

Honor And Fortune Exist For Him Who Always Recognizes The Neighborhood Of The Great, Always Feels Himself In The Presence Of High Causes.

Foolish, Whenever You Take The Meanness And Formality Of That Thing You Do, Instead Of Converting It Into The Obedient Spiracle Ofyour Character And Aims.

But In Every Constitution Some Large Degree Of Animal Vigor Is Necessary As Material Foundation For The Higher Qualities Of The Art.

Life Is Wasted In The Necessary Preparation Of Finding What Is The True Way, And We Die Just As We Enter It.

Public Opinion, I Am Sorry To Say, Will Bear A Great Deal Of Nonsense. There Is Scarcely Any Absurdity So Gross, Whether In Religion, Politics, Science Or Manners, Which It Will Not Bear.

Daughter Of Heaven And Earth, Coy Spring, With Sudden Passion Languishing, Teaching Barren Moors To Smile, Painting Pictures Mile On Mile, Holds A Cup Of Cowslip Wreaths Whence A Smokeless Incense Breathes.

The Reward Of A Thing Well Done, Is To Have Done It.

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

Every Man Should Let Out All The Length Of All The Reigns; Should Find Or Make A Frank And Healthy Expression Of What Force And Meaning Is In Him.

The Whole Value Of History, Of Biography, Is To Increase My Self-trust, By Demonstrating What Man Can Be And Do.

You Must Let Go Of A Thing For A New One To Come To You.

Society Is An Illusion To The Young Citizen. It Lies Before Him In Rigid Repose, With Certain Names, Men, And Institutions, Rootedlike Oak-trees To The Centre, Round Which All Arrange Themselves The Best They Can. But The Old Statesman Knows That Society Is Fluid; There Are No Such Roots And Centres; But Any Particle May Suddenly Become The Centre Of The Movement, And Compel The System To Gyrate Round It, As Every Man Of Strong Will, Like Pisistratus, Or Cromwell, Does For A Time, And Every Man Of Truth, Like Plato, Or Paul, Does Forever.

The First Thing A Great Person Does Is Make Us Realize The Insignificance Of Circumstance.

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

The Advantage In Education Is Always With Those Children Who Slip Up Into Life Without Being Objects Of Notice.

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