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We Do Not Know Today Whether We Are Busy Or Idle. In Times When We Thought Ourselves Indolent, We Have Afterwards Discovered That Much Was Accomplished, And Much Was Begun In Us.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We Do Not Know

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We Do Not Know Today Whether We Are Busy Or Idle. In Times When We Thought Ourselves Indolent, We Have Afterwards Discovered That Much Was Accomplished, And Much Was Begun In Us.

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Self Improvement

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

We Are Taught By Great Actions That The Universe Is The Property Of Every Individual In It.

As Soon As There Is Life There Is Danger.

Let Us Even Bid Our Dearest Friends Farewell, And Defy Them, Saying, "who Are You? Unhand Me: I Will Be Dependent No More." Ah! Seest Thou Not, O Brother, That Thus We Part Only To Meet Again On A Higher Platform, And Only Be More Each Other's, Because We Are More Our Own?

Society Is Infested By Persons Who, Seeing That The Sentiments Please, Counterfeit The Expression Of Them. These We Call Sentimentalists - Talkers Who Mistake The Description For The Thing, Saying For Having.

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.

Give A Boy Address And Accomplishments And You Give Him The Mastery Of Palaces And Fortunes Where He Goes.

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

Nothing Is Dead: Men Feign Themselves Dead, And Endure Mock Funerals And Mournful Obituaries, And There They Stand Looking Out Ofthe Window, Sound And Well, In Some New And Strange Disguise.

Can Anybody Remember When The Times Were Not Hard And Money Not Scarce?

The New Statement Is Always Hated By The Old, And, To Those Dwelling In The Old, Comes Like An Abyss Of Skepticism.

You Send Your Child To The Schoolmaster, But 'tis The Schoolboys Who Educate Him. You Send Him To The Latin Class, But Much Of Histuition Comes, On His Way To School, From The Shop- Windows.

Men Such As They Are, Very Naturally Seek Money Or Power; And Power Because It Is As Good As Money.

Englands Genius Filled All Measureof Heart And Soul, Of Strength And Pleasure,gave To The Mind Its Emperor,and Life Was Larger Than Before:nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeares Wit. The Men Who Lived With Him Becamepoets, For The Air Was Fame.

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

What Is A Man Born For But To Be A Reformer, A Remaker Of What Has Been Made, A Denouncer Of Lies, A Restorer Of Truth And Good?

I Know Nothing Which Life Has To Offer So Satisfying As The Profound Good Understanding, Which Can Subsist, After Much Exchange Ofgood Offices, Between Two Virtuous Men, Each Of Whom Is Sure Of Himself, And Sure Of His Friend. It Is A Happiness Which Postpones All Other Gratifications, And Makes Politics, And Commerce, And Churches, Cheap.

We Are As Much Informed Of A Writer's Genius By What He Selects As By What He Originates. We Read The Quotation With His Eyes, Andfind A New And Fervent Sense; As A Passage From One Of The Poets, Well Recited, Borrows New Interest From The Rendering. As The Journals Say, "the Italics Are Ours.

Always The Seer Is A Sayer. Somehow His Dream Is Told; Somehow He Publishes It With Solemn Joy: Sometimes With Pencil On Canvas, Sometimes With Chisel On Stone, Sometimes In Towers And Aisles Of Granite, His Soul's Worship Is Builded; Sometimes In Anthems Of Indefinite Music, But Clearest And Most Permanent, In Words.

Health Is The First Muse, Comprising The Magical Benefits Of Air, Landscape, And Bodily Exercise On The Mind.

You Do Not Get Power So That You Can Go Out And Do Things, You Go Out And Do Things And You Will Get The Power

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

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.

Cupid Is A Casuist, A Mystic, And A Cabalist,-- Can Your Lurking Thought Surprise, And Interpret Your Device, . . . . All Things Wait For And Divine Him,-- How Shall I Dare To Malign Him?

We Seldom See Anybody Who Is Not Uneasy Or Afraid To Live.

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.

So Nigh Is Grandeur To Our Dust, So Near Is God To Man, When Duty Whispers Low, 'thou Must,' The Youth Whispers, 'i Can.

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

When A Resolute Young Fellow Steps Up To The Great Bully, The World, And Takes Him Boldly By The Beard, He Is Often Surprised To Find It Comes Off In His Hand, And That It Was Only Tied On To Scare Away The Timid Adventurers.

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

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.

And So The Reliance On Property, Including The Reliance On Governments Which Protect It, Is The Want Of Self-reliance.

The Present Is An Edifice Which God Cannot Rebuild.

The Street Is Full Of Humiliations To The Proud.

The Roman Rule Was, To Teach A Boy Nothing That He Could Not Learn Standing. The Old English Rule Was, "all Summer In The Field, And All Winter In The Study." And It Seems As If A Man Should Learn To Plant, Or To Fish, Or To Hunt, That He Might Secure His Subsistence At All Events, And Not Be Painful To His Friends And Fellow Men.

Nothing Is Arbitrary, Nothing Is Insulated In Beauty. It Depends Forever On The Necessary And The Useful. The Plumage Of The Bird, The Mimic Plumage Of The Insect, Has A Reason For Its Rich Colors In The Constitution Of The Animal. Fitness Is So Inseparable An Accompaniment Of Beauty, That It, Has Been Taken For It.

The Life Of Man Is A Self-evolving Circle, Which, From A Ring Imperceptibly Small, Rushes On All Sides Outwards To New And Largercircles, And That Without End.

...in The Wilderness, I Find Something More Dear And Connate Than In The Streets Or Villages...in The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

Flowers So Strictly Belong To Youth, That We Adult Men Soon Come To Feel, That Their Beautiful Generations Concern Not Us: We Havehad Our Day; Now Let The Children Have Theirs. The Flowers Jilt Us, And We Are Old Bachelors With Our Ridiculous Tenderness.

We Flee Away From Cities, But We Bring The Best Of Cities, These Learned Classifiers, Men Knowing What They Seek, Armed Eyes Of Experts.

Peace Has Its Victories, But It Takes Brave Men And Women To Win Them.

Our Knowledge Is The Amassed Thought And Experience Of Innumerable Minds.

He Walks Abreast With His Days And Feels No Shame In Not 'studying A Profession', For He Does Not Postpone His Life, But Lives Already. He Has Not One Chance, But A Hundred Chances.

Always Pay; For First Or Last You Must Pay Your Entire Debt.

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

Blame Is Safer Than Praise

The Reason Why Any One Refuses His Assent To Your Opinion, Or His Aid To Your Benevolent Design, Is In You: He Refuses To Accept You As A Bringer Of Truth, Because, Though You Think You Have It, He Feels That You Have It Not. You Have Not Given Him The Authentic Sign.

I Am At A Loss To Understand Why People Hold Miss Austen's Novels At So High A Rate, Which Seem To Me Vulgar In Tone, Sterile In Artistic Invention, Imprisoned In Their Wretched Conventions Of English Society, Without Genius, Wit, Or Knowledge Of The World. Never Was Life So Pinched And Narrow. ... All That Interests In Any Character [is This]: Has He (or She) The Money To Marry With? ... Suicide Is More Respectable.

It In Every Fair Face, Every Fair Sky, Every Fair Flower.

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men

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

The Betrothed And Accepted Lover Has Lost The Wildest Charms Of His Maiden By Her Acceptance. She Was Heaven While He Pursued Her, But She Cannot Be Heaven If She Stoops To One Such As He!

As We Grow Old, The Beauty Steals Inward.

Science Does Not Know Its Debt To Imagination. Goethe Did Not Believe That A Great Naturalist Could Exist Without This Faculty.

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

But Harder Still It Has Proved To Resist And Rule The Dragon Money, With His Paper Wings. Chancellors And Boards Of Trade, Pitt, Peel, And Bobinson, And Their Parliaments, And Their Whole Generation, Adopted False Principles, And Went To Their Graves In The Belief That They Were Enriching The Country Which They Were Impoverishing.

Belief And Love,--a Believing Love Will Relieve Us Of A Vast Load Of Care. O My Brothers, God Exists. There Is A Soul At The Centre Of Nature, And Over The Will Of Every Man, So That None Of Us Can Wrong The Universe.

Conversation Is The Laboratory And Workshop Of The Student.

You Need Not Fear To Handle The Truth Roughly. She Is No Invalid.

The Eyes Of Men Converse As Much As Their Tongues, With The Advantage That The Ocular Dialect Needs No Dictionary, But Is Understood All The World Over.

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

The Terrible Tabulation Of The French Statists Brings Every Piece Of Whim And Humor To Be Reducible Also To Exact Numerical Ratios. If One Man In Twenty Thousand, Or In Thirty Thousand, Eats Shoes, Or Marries His Grandmother, Then, In Every Twenty Thousand, Or Thirty Thousand, Is Found One Man Who Eats Shoes, Or Marries His Grandmother.

Fear, Craft And Avarice Cannot Rear A State.

Let Us Stun And Astonish The Intruding Rabble Of Men And Books And Institutions By A Simple Declaration Of The Divine Fact. Bid The Invaders Take The Shoes From Off Their Feet, For God Is Here Within.

...as There Is No Screen Or Ceiling Between Our Heads And The Infinite Heavens, So Is There No Bar Or Wall In The Soul Where Man, The Effect, Ceases, And God, The Cause, Begins. The Walls Are Taken Away. We Lie Open On One Side To The Deeps Of Spiritual Nature, To The Attributes Of God. Justice We See And Know, Love, Freedom, Power. These Natures No Man Ever Got Above, But They Tower Over Us, And Most In The Moment When Our Interests Tempt Us To Wound Them.

The Intelligent Have A Right Over The Ignorant; Namely, The Right Of Instructing Them.

Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm.

The Sermon Which I Write Inquisitive Of Truth Is Good A Year After, But That Which Is Written Because A Sermon Must Be Writ Is Musty The Next Day.

You've Got To Be Taught To Be Afraid Of People Whose Eyes Are Oddly Made And People Whose Skin Is A Different Shade.

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?

Life Is March Weather, Savage And Serene In One Hour.

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?

No Great Man Ever Complains Of Want Of Opportunity.

An Individual Man Is A Fruit Which It Cost All The Foregoing Ages To Form And Ripen. He Is Strong, Not To Do, But To Live; Not In His Arms, But In His Heart; Not As An Agent, But As A Fact.

Tobacco And Opium Have Broad Backs, And Will Cheerfully Carry The Load Of Armies, If You Choose To Make Them Pay High For Such Joy As They Give And Such Harm As They Do.

Use Makes A Better Soldier Than The Most Urgent Considerations Of Duty,--familiarity With Danger Enabling Him To Estimate The Danger. He Sees How Much Is The Risk, And Is Not Afflicted With Imagination; Knows Practically Marshal Saxe's Rule, That Every Soldier Killed Costs The Enemy His Weight In Lead.

Truth Has Already Ceased To Be Itself If Polemically Said.

Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Every One Of Its Members. The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity. Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

Some Natures Are Too Good To Be Spoiled By Praise.

I Have Been Told By Persons Of Experience In Matters Of Taste, That The Fashions Follow A Law Of Gradation, And Are Never Arbitrary. The New Mode Is Always Only A Step Onward In The Same Direction As The Last Mode; And A Cultivated Eye Is Prepared For And Predicts The New Fashion.

An Original Sentence, A Step Forward, Is Worth More Than All The Censures.

There Is A Time When A Man Distinguishes The Idea Of Felicity From The Idea Of Wealth; It Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.

To A Physician, Each Man, Each Woman, Is An Amplification Of One Organ.

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

We Honor The Rich Because They Have Externally The Freedom, Power, And Grace Which We Feel To Be Proper To Man, Proper To Us.

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

Continual Failure Is A Road To Success - If You Have The Strength To Go On.

Road To Success

That Which We Are, We Are All The While Teaching, Not Voluntarily, But Involuntarily.

Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty.

Perhaps Love Is Only The Highest Symbol Of Friendship, As All Other Things Seem Symbols Of Love.

Life Wastes Itself Whilst We Are Preparing To Live.

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.

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

As Every Pool Reflects The Image Of The Sun, So Every Thought And Thing Restores Us An Image And Creature Of The Supreme Good. Theuniverse Is Perforated By A Million Channels For His Activity. All Things Mount And Mount.

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

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.

Society, To Be Sure, Does Not Like This Very Well; It Saith, Whoso Goes To Walk Alone, Accuses The Whole World; He Declares All To Be Unfit To Be His Companions; It Is Very Uncivil, Nay, Insulting; Society Will Retaliate.

There Is Never A Beginning, There Is Never An End, To The Inexplicable Continuity Of This Web Of God, But Always Circular Power Returning Into Itself.

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

There Is Always Safety In Valor.

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

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

Every Man Has A Choice Between Love Of Truth And Love Of Repose. Love Of Repose Brings Him A Solid Reputation And Peaceful Life; Love Of Truth Keeps Him In Suspense. A Man Who Loves Truth Respects The Highest Law Of His Being.

The Foolish Man Wonders At The Unusual, But The Wise Man At The Usual.

We Acquire The Strength We Have Overcome.

Aristotle And Plato Are Reckoned The Respective Heads Of Two Schools. A Wise Man Will See That Aristotle Platonizes.

You Must Treat The Days Respectfully, You Must Be A Day Yourself, And Not Interrogate It Like A College Professor.

We Resent All Criticism Which Denies Us Anything That Lies In Our Line Of Advance.

If You Love And Serve Man, You Cannot, By Any Hiding Or Stratagem, Escape Remuneration.

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.

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.

A Friend May Be Nature's Most Magnificent Creation.

I Consider Theology To Be The Rhetoric Of Morals.

I Do Not Count The Hours I Spend In Wandering By The Sea; The Forest Is My Loyal Friend, Like God It Useth Me.

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

So Far As A Person Thinks; They Are Free.

Alas For The Unhappy Man That Is Called To Stand In The Pulpit, And Not Give The Bread Of Life.

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

Men Have Sometimes Exchanged Names With Their Friends, As If They Would Signify That In Their Friend Each Loved His Own Soul.

The Eye Obeys Exactly The Action Of The Mind.

There Is No One Who Does Not Exaggerate. In Conversation, Men Are Encumbered With Personality, And Talk Too Much.

Exaggeration Is

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

Let Us Be Poised, Wise And Our Own Today.

A Man Should Carry Nature In His Head.

In The True Mythology, Love Is An Immortal Child, And Beauty Leads Him As A Guide; Nor Can We Express A Deeper Sense Than When We Say, Beauty Is The Pilot Of The Young Soul.

A Man Passes For That He Is Worth. What He Is Engraves Itself On His Face, On His Form, On His Fortunes, In Letters Of Light. Concealment Avails Him Nothing; Boasting Nothing. There Is Confession In The Glances Of Our Eyes; In Our Smiles; In Salutations; And The Grasp Of Hands.

Truth Is The Summit Of Being; Justice Is The Application Of It To Affairs.

The Path Of Things Is Silent. Will They Suffer A Speaker To Go With Them?

Tell Them Dear, That If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being: Why Thou Wert There, O Rival Of The Rose! I Never Sought To Ask, I Never Knew: But, In My Simple Ignorance Suppose The Selfsame Power That Brought Me There Brought You.

We Are As Much Strangers In Nature, As We Are Aliens From God. We Do Not Understand The Notes Of Birds. The Fox And The Deer Run Away From Us; The Bear And Tiger Rend Us. We Do Not Know The Uses Of More Than A Few Plants, As Corn And The Apple, The Potato And The Vine. Is Not The Landscape, Every Glimpse Of Which Hath A Grandeur, A Face Of Him?

Happy Will The House Be In Which The Relationships Are Formed From Character.

The Great Majority Of Men Grow Up And Grow Old In Seeming And Following.

A Garden Has This Advantage, That It Makes It Indifferent Where You Live. A Well-laid Garden Makes The Face Of The Country Of No Account; Let That Be Low Or High, Grand Or Mean, You Have Made A Beautiful Abode Worthy Of Man.

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

The Relations Of The Soul To The Divine Spirit Are So Pure, That It Is Profane To Seek To Interpose Helps.

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

I Cannot Go To The Houses Of My Nearest Relatives, Because I Do Not Wish To Be Alone. Society Exists By Chemical Affinity, And Not Otherwise.

In Nature, All Is Useful, All Is Beautiful. It Is Therefore Beautiful, Because It Is Alive, Moving, Reproductive; It Is Thereforeuseful, Because It Is Symmetrical And Fair. Beauty Will Not Come At The Call Of A Legislature, Nor Will It Repeat In England Or America Its History In Greece. It Will Come, As Always, Unannounced, And Spring Up Between The Feet Of Brave And Earnest Men.

The Universe Does Not Jest With Us, But Is In Earnest.

Homeopathy Is Insignificant As An Act Of Healing, But Of Great Value As Criticism On The Hygeia Or Medical Practice Of The Time.

We Do Not Want Actions, But Men; Not A Chemical Drop Of Water, But Rain; The Spirit That Sheds And Showers Actions, Countless, Endless Actions.

Everything In Nature Is Bipolar, Or Has A Positive And A Negative Pole.

He That Loveth Maketh His Own The Grandeur He Loves

The Democrat Is A Young Conservative; The Conservative Is An Old Democrat. The Aristocrat Is The Democrat Ripe, And Gone To Seed,--because Both Parties Stand On The One Ground Of The Supreme Value Of Property, Which One Endeavors To Get, And The Other To Keep.

Give All To Love; Obey Thy Heart.

The Ancestor Of Every Action Is Thought; When We Understand That We Begin To Comprehend That Our World Is Governed By Thought And That Everything Without Had Its Counterpart Originally Within The Mind.

The Person Who Screams, Or Uses The Superlative Degree, Or Converses With Heat Puts Whole Drawing-rooms To Flight. If You Wish To Be Loved, Love Measure.

If, At Any Time, It Comes Into My Head, That A Present Is Due From Me To Somebody, I Am Puzzled What To Give, Until The Opportunity Is Gone.

Consideration Is The Soil In Which Wisdom May Be Expected To Grow, And Strength Be Given To Every Up-springing Plant Of Duty.

Every Act Of The Man Inscribes Itself In The Memories Of His Fellows, And In His Own Manners And Face. The Air Is Full Of Sounds;the Sky, Of Tokens; The Ground Is All Memoranda And Signatures; And Every Object Covered Over With Hints, Which Speak To The Intelligent.

All Conservatives Are Such From Personal Defects. They Have Been Effiminated By Position Of Nature, Born Halt And Blind, Through Luxury Of Their Parents, And Can Only, Like Invalids, Act On The Defensive.

I Am Ashamed To See What A Shallow Village Tale Our So-called History Is.

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.

God Will Not Make Himself Manifest To Cowards

When A Whole Nation Is Roaring Patriotism At The Top Of Its Voice, I Am Fain To Explore The Cleanness Of Its Hands And The Purity Of Its Heart.

All Science Is Transcendental Or Else Passes Away.

The Adventitious Beauty Of Poetry May Be Felt In The Greater Delight With A Verse Given In A Happy Quotation Than In The Poem.

Truth Is The Summit Of Being.

No Man Ever Came To An Experience Which Was Satiating, But His Good Is Tidings Of A Better. Onward And Onward!

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

Let The Amelioration In Our Laws Of Property Proceed From The Concession Of The Rich, Not From The Grasping Of The Poor. Let Us Understand That The Equitable Rule Is, That No One Should Take More Than His Share, Let Him Be Ever So Rich.

Commonsense Is The Wick Of The Candle.

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

Spirit, That Made Those Heroes Dare To Die, And Leave Their Children Free, Bid Time And Nature Gently Spare The Shaft We Raise To Them And Thee.

Oh, Be My Friend, And Teach Me To Be Thine!

Science Was False By Being Unpoetical. It Assumed To Explain A Reptile Or A Mollusk, And Isolated It-which Is Hunting For Life In Graveyards. Reptile Or Mollusk Or Man Or Angel Only Exists In System, In Relation.

It Takes A Good Deal Of Character To Judge A Person By His Future Instead Of His Past

Every Mind Must Know The Whole Lesson For Itself,-must Go Over The Whole Ground. What It Does Not See, What It Does Not Live, It Will Not Know.

The Sower May Mistake And Sow His Peas Crookedly; The Peas Make No Mistake, But Come Up And Show His Line.

If The Black Man Is Feeble And Not Important To The Existing Races, Not On A Parity With The Best Race, The Black Man Must Serve,and Be Exterminated. But If The Black Man Carries In His Bosom An Indispensable Element Of A New And Coming Civilization; For The Sake Of That Element, No Wrong Nor Strength Nor Circumstance Can Hurt Him: He Will Survive And Play His Part. So Now, The Arrival In The World Of Such Men As Toussaint, And The Haytian Heroes, Or Of The Leaders Of Their Race In Barbadoes And Jamaica, Outweighs In Good Omen All The English And American Humanity.

The Young Man Reveres Men Of Genius, Because, To Speak Truly, They Are More Himself Than He Is.

We Sell The Thrones Of Angels For A Short And Turbulent Pleasure.

Some Men's Words I Remember So Well That I Must Often Use Them To Express My Thought. Yes, Because I Perceive That We Have Heard The Same Truth, But They Have Heard It Better.

If You Believe In Fate, Believe In It, At Least, For Your Good.

If You Would Lift Me Up You Must Be On Higher Ground.

The Laws Of Each Are Convertible Into The Laws Of Any Other.

Nature Never Hurries: Atom By Atom, Little By Little, She Achieves Her Work. The Lesson One Learns From Yachting Or Planting Is The Manners Of Nature; Patience With The Delays Of Wind And Sun, Delays Of The Seasons, Bad Weather, Excess Or Lack Of Water.

In Every Society Some Men Are Born To Rule, And Some To Advise.

The Key To Every Man Is His Thought.

There Is This To Be Said In Favor Of Drinking, That It Takes The Drunkard First Out Of Society, Then Out Of The World.

Why Should I Hasten To Solve Every Riddle Which Life Offers Me? I Am Well Assured That The Questioner, Who Brings Me So Many Problems, Will Bring Me The Answers Also, In Due Time.

I Count Him A Great Man Who Inhabits A Higher Sphere Of Thought, Into Which Other Men Rise With Labor And Difficulty; He Has But To Open His Eyes To See Things In A True Light, And In Large Relations; Whilst They Must Make Painful Corrections, And Keep A Vigilant Eye On Many Sources Of Error.

This Knot Of Nature Is So Well Tied That Nobody Was Ever Cunning Enough To Find The Two Ends.

The Element Running Through Entire Nature, Which We Popularly Call Fate, Is Known To Us As Limitation. Whatever Limits Us, We Callfate.

The Beautiful Laws Of Time And Space, Once Dislocated By Our Inaptitude, Are Holes And Dens. If The Hive Be Disturbed By Rash And Stupid Hands, Instead Of Honey, It Will Yield Us Bees.

The Sky Is The Daily Bread Of The Eyes.

Some Men, At The Approach Of A Dispute, Neigh Like Horses.

Conservatism Is Affluent And Openhanded, But There Is A Cunning Juggle In Riches. I Observe That They Take Somewhat For Everythingthey Give. I Look Bigger, But Am Less; I Have More Clothes, But Am Nit So Warm; More Armor, But Less Courage; More Books, But Less Wit.

When You Have Worn Out Yourshoes, The Strength Of The Shoe Leather Has Passed Into The Fiber Ofyour Body. I Measure Your Health By The Number Of Shoes And Hats Andclothes You Have Worn Out.

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

The World Is So Beautiful That I Can Hardly Believe It Exists.

The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity.

Our Condition As Men Is Risky And Ticklish Enough. One Can Not Be Sure Of Himself And His Fortune An Hour, But He May Be Whisked Off Into Some Pitiable Or Ridiculous Plight.

Every Hero Becomes A Bore At Last.

The Household Is A School Of Power. There, Within The Door, Learn The Tragi-comedy Of Human Life.

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.

Things Bring Their Own Philosophy With Them, That Is, Prudence.

The Hero Is Suffered To Be Himself.

The Most Tedious Of All Discourses Are On The Subject Of The Supreme Being.

All Reform Aims, In Some One Particular, To Let The Soul Have Its Way Through Us; In Other Words, To Engage Us To Obey.

We Live Ruins Amid Ruins.

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