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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Undoubtedly We Have No

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

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.

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In The Order Of Nature, We Cannot Render Benefits To Those From Whom We Receive Them, Or Only Seldom. But The Benefit We Receive Must Be Rendered Again, Line For Line, Deed For Deed, Cent For Cent, To Somebody. Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.

The First Questions Are Always To Be Asked, And The Wisest Doctor Is Gravelled By The Inquisitiveness Of A Child.

It Is Very Certain That The Strong British Race Which Has Now Overrun Much Of This Continent, Must Also Overrun [texas], And Mexico And Oregon Also, And It Will In The Course Of Ages Be Of Small Import By What Particular Occasions And Methods It Was Done.

All Men Are Poets At Heart.

The Scholar May Lose Himself In Schools, In Words, And Become A Pedant; But When He Comprehends His Duties, He Above All Men Is Arealist, And Converses With Things.

English History Is Aristocracy With The Doors Open. Who Has Courage And Faculty, Let Him Come In.

English History

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.

The University Must Be Retrospective. The Gale That Gives Direction To The Vanes On All Its Towers Blows Out Of Antiquity.

Each Religious Sect Has Its Own Physiognomy. The Methodists Have Acquired A Face; The Quakers, A Face; The Nuns, A Face. An Englishman Will Pick Out A Dissenter By His Manners.

The Glory Of The Farmer Is That, In The Division Of Labors, It Is His Part To Create. All Trade Rests At Last On His Primitive Activity. He Stands Close To Nature; He Obtains From The Earth The Bread And The Meat. The Food Which Was Not, He Causes To Be.

Division Of Labor

The World Globes Itself In A Drop Of Dew.

Poverty Consist In Feeling Poor.

All The Facts Of Nature Are Nouns Of The Intellect, And Make The Grammar Of The Eternal Language. Every Word Has A Double, Trebleor Centuple Use And Meaning.

What Omniscience Has Music! So Absolutely Impersonal, And Yet Every Sufferer Feels His Secret Sorrow Soothed.

There Is No King Or Sovereign State That Can Fix A Hero's Rate; Each To All Is Venerable.

We See Young Men Who Owe Us A New World, So Readily And Lavishly They Promise, But They Never Acquit The Debt; They Die Young Anddodge The Account: Or If They Live, They Lose Themselves In The Crowd.

My Doom And My Strength Is To Be Solitary.

If You Take In A Lie, You Must Take In All That Belongs To It.

The First Lesson Of History Is That Evil Is Good.

Give Me Health And A Day, And I Will Make The Pomp Of Emperors Ridiculous.

It Behooves Us To Be Careful What We Worship, For What We Are Worshipping We Are Becoming.

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.

Nature Tells Every Secret Once.

Nothing Divine Dies. All Good Is Eternally Reproductive. The Beauty Of Nature Re-forms Itself In The Mind, And Not For Barren Contemplation, But For New Creation.

I Am Grown By Sympathy A Little Eager And Sentimental, But Leave Me Alone, And I Should Relish Every Hour And What It Brought Me, The Pot-luck Of The Day, As Heartily As The Oldest Gossip In The Bar-room.

Never Utter The Truism But Live It Among Men.

Slavery Is No Scholar, No Improver; It Does Not Love The Whistle Of The Railroad; It Does Not Love The Newspaper, The Mailbag, A College, A Book Or A Preacher Who Has The Absurd Whim Of Saying What He Thinks; It Does Not Increase The White Population; It Does Not Improve The Soil; Everything Goes To Decay.

Once You Make A Decision, The Universe Conspires To Make It Happen.

The Man, Who Has Seen The Rising Moon Break Out Of The Clouds At Midnight, Has Been Present Like An Archangel At The Creation Of Light And Of The World.

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.

It Is A Fact Often Observed, That Men Have Written Good Verses Under The Inspiration Of Passion, Who Cannot Write Well Under Other Circumstances.

There Are Many Things Of Which A Wise Man Might Wish To Be Ignorant

The Soul Answers Never By Words, But By The Thing Itself That Is Inquired After.

Man Is The Dwarf Of Himself.

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

You Must Elect Your Work; You Shall Take What Your Brains Can, And Drop All The Rest. Only So Can That Amount Of Vital Force Accumulate Which Can Make The Step From Knowing To Doing. No Matter How Much Faculty Of Idle Seeing A Man Has, The Step From Knowing To Doing Is Rarely Taken. It Is A Step Out Of A Chalk Circle Of Imbecility Into Fruitfulness.

All Necessary Truth Is Its Own Evidence.

Of Course, Money Will Do After Its Kind, And Will Steadily Work To Unspiritualize And Unchurch The People To Whom It Was Bequeathed.

Success To The Strongest, Who Are Always, At Last, The Wisest And Best.

The Manly Part Is To Do With Might And Main What You Can Do.

I Will Do Strongly Before The Sun And Moon Whatever Inly Rejoices Me And The Heart Apoints.

Something Is Wanting To Science Until It Has Been Humanised.

Society Does Not Love Its Unmaskers.

I Suppose An Entire Cabinet Of Shells Would Be An Expression Of The Whole Human Mind; A Flora Of The Whole Globe Would Be So Likewise, Or A History Of Beasts; Or A Painting Of All The Aspects Of The Clouds. Everything Is Significant.

Never Self-possessed, Or Prudent, Love Is All Abandonment.

There Are Many Virtues In Books, But The Essential Value Is The Adding Of Knowledge To Our Stock By The Record Of New Facts, And, Better, By The Record Of Intuitions Which Distribute Facts, And Are The Formulas Which Supersede All Histories.

Our Books Approach Very Slowly The Things We Most Wish To Know.

What A Searching Preacher Of Self-command Is The Varying Phenomenon Of Health.

Some Eyes Threaten Like A Loaded And Levelled Pistol, And Others Are As Insulting As Hissing Or Kicking; Some Have No More Expression Than Blueberries, While Others Are As Deep As A Well Which You Can Fall Into.

Writing Should Be The Settlement Of Dew On The Leaf.

It Was A Pleasure And A Privilege To Walk With Him [h.d. Thoreau]. He Knew The Country Like A Fox Or A Bird, And Passed Through It As Freely By Paths Of His Own.

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.

A Hero Is A Man Who Is Afraid To Run Away.

If You Visit Your Friend, Why Need You Apologize For Not Having Visited Him, And Waste His Time And Deface Your Own Act? Visit Him Now.

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.

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.

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

The Most Dangerous Thing Is Illusion.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Picture Which Drives All Beholders Nobly Mad.

Sport Is The Bloom And Glow Of A Perfect Health. The Great Will Not Condescend To Take Anything Seriously; All Must Be As Gay As The Song Of A Canary, Though It Were The Building Of Cities, Or The Eradication Of Old And Foolish Churches And Nations, Which Have Cumbered The Earth Long Thousands Of Years.

The Word Unto The Prophet Spoken Was Writ On Tablets Yet Unbroken: The Word By Seers Or Sibyls Told, In Groves Of Oak Or Fanes Of Gold, Still Floats Upon The Morning Wind, Still Whispers To The Willing Mind.

I Like People Who Like Plato.

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

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.

Have Mountains, And Waves, And Skies, No Significance But What We Consciously Give Them, When We Employ Them As Emblems Of Our Thoughts?

A Good Indignation Makes An Excellent Speech.

Allow Yourself To Trust Joy And Embrace It. You Will Find You Dance With Everything.

Nature Hates Calculators.

If You Meet A Sectary, Or A Hostile Partisan, Never Recognize The Dividing Lines; But Meet On What Common Ground Remains,--if Onlythat The Sun Shines, And The Rain Rains For Both; The Area Will Widen Very Fast, And Ere You Know It The Boundary Mountains, On Which The Eye Had Fastened, Have Melted Into Air.

The Poise Of A Plant, The Bended Tree Recovering Itself From The Strong Wind, The Vital Resources Of Every Vegetable And Animal, Are Also Demonstrations Of The Self-sufficing, And Therefore Self-relying Soul. All History From Its Highest To Its Trivial Passages Is The Various Record Of This Power.

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.

Nature Hates Monopolies And Exceptions.

I Have Only One Doctrine, The Infinitude Of The Private Man.

As Men Get On In Life, They Acquire A Love For Sincerity, And Somewhat Less Solicitude To Be Lulled Or Amused. In The Progress Ofthe Character, There Is An Increasing Faith In The Moral Sentiment, And A Decreasing Faith In Propositions.

Thought Is The Seed Of Action.

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

Books Are The Best Of Things, Well Used; Abused, Among The Worst...they Are For Nothing But To Inspire.

The Soul Comes From Without Into The Human Body, As Into A Temporary Abode, And It Goes Out Of It Anew It Passes Into Other Habitations, For The Soul Is Immortal." "it Is The Secret Of The World That All Things Subsist And Do Not Die, But Only Retire A Little From Sight And Afterwards Return Again. Nothing Is Dead; Men Feign Themselves Dead, And Endure Mock Funerals... And There They Stand Looking Out Of The Window, Sound And Well, In Some Strange New Disguise.

Logic Is The Procession Or Proportionate Unfolding Of The Intuition; But Its Virtue Is As Silent Method; The Moment It Would Appear As Propositions, And Have A Separate Value, It Is Worthless.

The Life Of Truth Is Cold.

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

Let Us Not Look East And West For Materials Of Conversation, But Rest In Presence And Unity. A Just Feeling Will Fast Enough Supply Fuel For Discourse, If Speaking Be More Grateful Than Silence. When People Come To See Us, We Foolishly Prattle, Lest We Be Inhospitable. But Things Said For Conversation Are Chalk Eggs. Don't Say Things. What You Are Stands Over You The While, And Thunders So That I Cannot Hear What You Say To The Contrary.

To Give Money To A Sufferer Is Only A Come-off. It Is Only A Postponement Of The Real Payment, A Bribe Paid For Silence, A Creditsystem In Which A Paper Promise To Pay Answers For The Time Instead Of Liquidation. We Owe To Man Higher Succors Than Food And Fire. We Owe To Man.

For What Avail The Plough Or Sail, Or Land Or Life, If Freedom Fail?

Ennui Shortens Life, And Bereaves The Day Of Its Light.

Virtue Runs Before The Muse, And Defies Her Skill; She Is Rapt And Doth Refuse To Wait A Painter's Will.

Knowledge Is When You Learn Something New Every Day. Wisdom Is When You Let Something Go Every Day.

Very Idle Is All Curiosity Concerning Other People's Estimate Of Us, And All Fear Of Remaining Unknown Is Not Less So.

Examples Are Cited By Soldiers, Of Men Who Have Seen The Cannon Pointed, And The Fire Given To It, And Who Have Stepped Aside From He Path Of The Ball. The Terrors Of The Storm Are Chiefly Confined To The Parlour And The Cabin.

The Masses Have No Habit Of Self-reliance Or Original Action.

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.

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

In The Death Of My Son, Now More Than Two Years Ago, I Seem To Have Lost A Beautiful Estate,--no More. I Cannot Get It Nearer To Me.

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.

I Must Be Myself. I Cannot Break Myself Any Longer For You, Or You. If You Can Love Me For What I Am, We Shall Be The Happier. If You Cannot, I Will Still Seek To Seserve That You Should.

No Facts To Me Are Sacred; None Are Profane.

The Poet Needs A Ground In Popular Tradition On Which He May Work, And Which, Again, May Restrain His Art Within The Due Temperance. It Holds Him To The People, Supplies A Foundation For His Edifice; And, In Furnishing So Much Work Done To His Hand, Leaves Him At Leisure, And In Full Strength For The Audacities Of His Imagination.

If We Live Truly, We Shall See Truly.

What Art Can Paint Or Gild Any Object In After Life With The Glow Which Nature Gives To The First Baubles Of Childhood? St. Peter's Cannot Have The Magical Power Over Us That The Red And Gold Covers Of Our First Picture-book Possessed.

A Man Is Known By The Books He Reads.

In All Conversation Between Two Persons, Tacit Reference Is Made, As To A Third Party, To A Common Nature. That Third Party Or Common Nature Is Not Social; It Is Impersonal; Is God.

The Bhagavad-gita Is An Empire Of Thought And In Its Philosophical Teachings Krishna Has All The Attributes Of The Full-fledged Montheistic Deity And At The Same Time The Attributes Of The Upanisadic Absolute.

Fear Is A Great Instructor.

For Beauty Is God's Handwriting...a Nd, Thank God For It As A Cup Of His Blessing.

Christian Inspirational

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.

Of All Wit's Uses, The Main One Is To Live Well With Who Has None.

If Any Mention Was Made Of Homicide, Madness, Adultery, And Intolerable Tortures, We Would Let The Church-bells Ring Louder, The Church-organ Swell Its Peal And Drown The Hideous Sound. The Sugar They Raised Was Excellent: Nobody Tasted Blood In It.

It Is Hard To Mesmerize Ourselves, To Whip Our Own Top; But Through Sympathy We Are Capable Of Energy And Endurance. Concert Fires People To A Certain Fury Of Performance They Can Rarely Reach Alone.

Truth, And Goodness, And Beauty, Are But Different Faces Of The Same All

Different Faces

Converse With A Mind That Is Grandly Simple, And Literature Looks Like Word-catching. The Simplest Utterances Are Worthiest To Bewritten, Yet Are They So Cheap, And So Things Of Course, That, In The Infinite Riches Of The Soul, It Is Like Gathering A Few Pebbles Off The Ground, Or Bottling A Little Air In A Phial, When The Whole Earth And The Whole Atmosphere Are Ours.

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

Cannot We Let [children] Be Themselves, And Enjoy Life In Their Own Way? You Are Trying To Make Another You. One's Enough.

New York Is A Sucked Orange.

The Intellect Is Vagabond, And Our System Of Education Fosters Restlessness. Our Minds Travel When Our Bodies Are Forced To Stay At Home. We Imitate; And What Is Imitation But The Travelling Of The Mind?

All Ages Of Belief Have Been Great; All Of Unbelief Have Been Mean.

The Book, The College, The School Of Art, The Institution Of Any Kind, Stop With Some Past Utterance Of Genius. . . . They Look Backward And Not Forward. But Genius Looks Forward: The Eyes Of Man Are Set In His Forehead, Not In His Hindhead: Man Hopes: Genius Creates. Whatever Talents May Be, If The Man Create Not, The Pure Efflux Of The Deity Is Not His; - Cinders And Smoke There May Be, But Not Yet Flame.

Science Always Goes Abreast With The Just Elevation Of The Man, Keeping Step With Religion And Metaphysics; Or, The State Of Science Is An Index Of Our Self-knowledge.

We Are Like Travellers Using The Cinders Of A Volcano To Roast Their Eggs. Whilst We See That It Always Stands Ready To Clothe What We Would Say, We Cannot Avoid The Question Whether The Characters Are Not Significant Of Themselves.

Why Has My Motley Diary No Jokes? Because It Is A Soliloquy And Every Man Is Grave Alone.

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.

The Uses Of Travel Are Occasional, And Short; But The Best Fruit It Finds, When It Finds It, Is Conversation; And This Is A Main Function Of Life.

There Is No Beautifier Of Complexion, Or Form, Or Behavior, Like The Wish To Scatter Joy And Not Pain Around Us. 'tis Good To Give A Stranger A Meal, Or A Night's Lodging. 'tis Better To Be Hospitable To His Good Meaning And Thought, And Give Courage To A Companion. We Must Be As Courteous To A Man As We Are To A Picture, Which We Are Willing To Give The Advantage Of A Good Light.

In A Library We Are Surrounded By Many Hundreds Of Dear Friends, But They Are Imprisoned By An Enchanter In These Paper And Leathern Boxes.

They Have Seen But Half The Universe Who Never Have Been Shown The House Of Pain.

We Seek Our Friend Not Sacredly, But With An Adulterate Passion Which Would Appropriate Him To Ourselves.

To Accomplish Excellence Or Anything Outstanding, You Must Listen To That Whisper Which Is Heard By You Alone.

It Is Dainty To Be Sick If You Have Leisure And Convenience For It.

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

Everyone I Meet Is In Some Way My Superior.

Passion Rebuilds The World For The Youth. It Makes All Things Alive And Significant.

The Resources Of The Scholar Are Proportioned To His Confidence In The Attributes Of The Intellect.

Give Me Wine To Wash Me Clean Of The Weather-stains Of Cares

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

A Woman Should Always Challenge Our Respect, And Never Move Our Compassion.

The Good Lawyer Is Not The Man Who Has An Eye To Every Side And Angle Of Contingency, And Qualifies All His Qualifications, But Who Throws Himself On Your Part So Heartily, That He Can Get You Out Of A Scrape.

That You Are Fair Or Wise Is Vain, Or Strong, Or Rich, Or Generous; You Must Have Also The Untaught Strain That Sheds Beauty On The Rose.

Neither You Nor The World Knows What You Can Do Until You Have Tried.

The Unbelief Of The Age Is Attested By The Loud Condemnation Of Trifles.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Practical Poet.

Difference Of Opinion Is The One Crime Which Kings Never Forgive.

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.

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men. Every Man Is An Inlet To The Same And To All Of The Same.

There Is No Teaching Until The Pupil Is Brought Into The Same State Or Principle In Which You Are; A Transfusion Takes Place; He Is You, And You Are He; Then Is A Teaching; And By No Unfriendly Chance Or Bad Company Can He Ever Lose The Benefit.

When Life Has Been Well Spent, Age Is A Loss Of What It Can Well Spare,--muscular Strength, Organic Instincts, Gross Bulk, And Works That Belong To These. But The Central Wisdom, Which Was Old In Infancy, Is Young In Fourscore Years, And Dropping Off Obstructions, Leaves In Happy Subjects The Mind Purified And Wise.

Every Great Achievement Is The Victory Of A Flaming Heart.

There Are Geniuses In Trade As Well As In War, Or The State, Or Letters; And The Reason Why This Or That Man Is Fortunate Is Not To Be Told. It Lies In The Man: That Is All Anybody Can Tell You About 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.

I Dream Of A Better Tomorrow, Where Chickens Can Cross The Road And Not Be Questioned About Their Motives.

Every Natural Fact Is A Symbol Of Some Spiritual Fact. Every Appearance In Nature Corresponds To Some State Of The Mind, And That State Of The Mind Can Only Be Described By Presenting That Natural Appearance As Its Picture.

The Highest End Of Government Is The Culture Of Men.

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

Every Promise Of The Soul Has Innumerable Fulfillments; Each Of Its Joys Ripens Into A New Want.

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.

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

The Two Parties Which Divide The State, The Party Of Conservation And That Of Innovation, Are Very Old, And Have Disputed The Possession Of The World Ever Since It Was Made.

Skepticism Is Slow Suicide.

A Man Cannot Speak But He Judges Himself. With His Will Or Against His Will He Draws His Portrait To The Eye Of His Companions By Every Word. Every Opinion Reacts On Him Who Utters It. It Is A Threadball Thrown At A Mark, But The Other End Remains On The Thrower

When We Have Arrived At The Question, The Answer Is Already Near.

But I Go With My Friend To The Shore Of Our Little River, And With One Stroke Of The Paddle, I Leave The Village Politics And Personalities, Yes, And The World Of Villages And Personalities Behind, And Pass Into A Delicate Realm Of Sunset And Moonlight, Too Bright Almost For Spotted Man To Enter Without Novitiate And Probation.

A Philosopher Must Be More Than A Philosopher.

All The Great Speakers Were Bad Speakers At First.

Generalization Is Always A New Influx Of Divinity Into The Mind. Hence The Thrill That Attends It.

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

If The Tongue Had Not Been Framed For Articulation, Man Would Still Be A Beast In The Forest.

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.

Every Man's Nature Is A Sufficient Advertisement To Him Of The Character Of His Fellows.

Among The Map Makers Of Each Generation Are The Risk Takers, Those Who See The Opportunities, Seize The Moment And Expand Man's Vision Of The Future

Visions Of The Future

Nature Is The Symbol Of Spirit.

The Most Attractive Class Of People Are Those Who Are Powerful Obliquely, And Not By The Direct Stroke: Men Of Genius, But Not Yetaccredited: One Gets The Cheer Of Their Light, Without Paying Too Great A Tax.

A Man Must Be In Sympathy With Society Around Him, Or Else, Not Wish To Be In Sympathy With It. If Neither Of These Two, He Must Be Wretched.

Language Is Fossil Poetry.

None Of Us Will Ever Accomplish Anything Excellent Or Commanding Except When He Listens To This Whisper Which Is Heard By Him Alone.

Foolish Consistencies Are The Hobgoblins Of Small Minds!

Every Action Has An Ancestor Of A Thought.

We Are The Prisoners Of Ideas. They Catch Us Up For Moments Into Their Heaven, And So Fully Engage Us, That We Take No Thought Forthe Morrow, Gaze Like Children, Without An Effort To Make Them Our Own.

Good Nature Is Stronger Than Tomahawks.

The People Fancy They Hate Poetry, And They Are All Poets And Mystics.

Whatever Appeals To The Imagination, By Transcending The Ordinary Limits Of Human Ability, Wonderfully Encourages And Liberates Us.

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.

We Love Flattery, Even Though We Are Not Deceived By It, Because It Shows That We Are Of Importance Enough To Be Courted.

Language Is A City, To The Building Of Which Every Human Being Brought A Stone; Yet He Is No More To Be Credited With The Grand Result Than The Acaleph Which Adds A Cell To The Coral Reef Which Is The Basis Of The Continent.

It Is True That The Discerning Intellect Of The World Is Always Much In Advance Of The Creative, So That There Are Competent Judges Of The Best Book, And Few Writers Of The Best Books.

Enthusiasm Is The Leaping Lightning, Not To Be Measured By The Horse-power Of The Understanding

The Civility Of The World Has Reached That Pitch That Their More Moral Genius Is Becoming Indispensable, And The Quality Of This Race Is To Be Honored For Itself.

Nature Is Sanative, Refining, Elevating. How Cunningly She Hides Every Wrinkle Of Her Inconceivable Antiquity Under Roses, And Violets, And Morning Dew! Every Inch Of The Mountains Is Scarred By Unimaginable Convulsions, Yet The New Day Is Purple With The Bloom Of Youth And Love.

Fractures Well Cured Make Us More Strong.

Men In All Ways Are Better Than They Seem.

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.

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.

Give Me Truths For I Am Weary Of The Surfaces.

A Painter Told Me That Nobody Could Draw A Tree Without In Some Sort Becoming A Tree; Or Draw A Child By Studying The Outlines Of Its Form Merely But By Watching For A Time His Motions And Plays, The Painter Enters Into His Nature And Can Then Draw Him At Every Attitude.

We Want Men And Women Who Shall Renovate Life And Our Social State But We See That Most Natures Are Insolvent, Cannot Satisfy Their Own Wants, Have An Ambition Out Of All Proportion To Their Practical Force, And So Do Lean And Beg Day And Night Continually.

Every Man Is Entitled To Be Valued By His Best Moment.

In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But The Triumph Of Principles.

We Learn Geology The Morning After The Earthquake, On Ghastly Diagrams Of Cloven Mountains, Upheaved Plains, And The Dry Bed Of The Sea.

We Believe That The Defects Of So Many Perverse And So Many Frivolous People, Who Make Up Society, Are Organic, And Society Is A Hospital Of Incurables.

The Narrow Sectarian Cannot Read Astronomy With Impunity. The Creeds Of His Church Shrivel Like Dried Leaves At The Door Of The Observatory.

The Good Judge Is Not He Who Does Hair-splitting Justice To Every Allegation, But Who, Aiming At Substantial Justice, Rules Something Intelligible Of The Guidance Of Suitors.

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