Background Image

...

We Live In A New And Exceptional Age. America Is Another Word For Opportunity. Our Whole History Appears Like A Last Effort Of The Divine Providence In Behalf Of The Human Race; And A Literal, Slavish Following Of Precedents, As By A Justice Of The Peace, Is Not For Those Who At This Hour Lead The American Civilization.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

We Live In A

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

We Live In A New And Exceptional Age. America Is Another Word For Opportunity. Our Whole History Appears Like A Last Effort Of The Divine Providence In Behalf Of The Human Race; And A Literal, Slavish Following Of Precedents, As By A Justice Of The Peace, Is Not For Those Who At This Hour Lead The American Civilization.

Views: 16569

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Height Of The Pinnacle Is Determined By The Breadth Of The Base.

Don't Trust Children With Edge Tools. Don't Trust Man, Great God, With More Power Than He Has Until He Has Learned To Use That Little Better. What A Hell We Should Make Of The World If We Could Do What We Would!

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

Then, Though I Prize My Friends, I Cannot Afford To Talk With Them And Study Their Visions, Lest I Lose My Own. It Would Indeed Give Me A Certain Household Joy To Quit This Lofty Seeking, This Spiritual Astronomy, Or Search Of Stars, And Come Down To Warm Sympathies With You; But Then I Know Well I Shall Mourn Always The Vanishing Of My Mighty Gods.

Great Men Are Sincere.

Christianity Taught The Capacity, The Element, To Love The All-perfect Without A Stingy Bargain For Personal Happiness. It Taught That To Love Him Was Happiness;--to Love Him In Others' Virtues.

The Never-ending Task Of Self Improvement.

For Everything You Have Missed, You Have Gained Something Else, And For Everything You Gain, You Lose Something Else.

Good Bye, Proud World! I'm Going Home; Thou Art Not My Friend, And I'm Not Thine

Dreams Have A Poetic Integrity And Truth. This Limbo And Dust-hole Of Thought Is Presided Over By A Certain Reason, Too.

God Hides Things By Putting Them Near Us.

The Health Of The Eye Demands A Horizon.

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

The Cure For False Theology Is Motherwit. Forget Your Books And Traditions, And Obey Your Moral Perceptions At This Hour.

The Wonder Is That We Can See These Trees And Not Wonder More.

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

Conversation Is The Laboratory And Workshop Of The Student.

Time, Which Shows So Vacant, Indivisible, And Divine In Its Coming, Is Slit And Peddled Into Trifles And Tatters. A Door Is To Bepainted, A Lock To Be Repaired. I Want Wood, Or Oil, Or Meal, Or Salt; The House Smokes, Or I Have A Headache; Then The Tax; And An Affair To Be Transacted With A Man Without Heart Or Brains; And The Stinging Recollection Of An Injurious Or Very Awkward Word,--these Eat Up The Hours.

My Book Should Smell Of Pines And Resound With The Hum Of Insects.

The Age Of Puberty Is A Crisis In The Age Of Man Worth Studying. It Is The Passage From The Unconscious To The Conscious; From Thesleep Of Passions To Their Rage.

In Certain Men Digestion And Sex Absorb The Vital Force, And The Stronger These Are, The Individual Is So Much Weaker. The More Ofthese Drones Perish, The Better For The Hive.

Man Thinking Must Not Be Subdued By His Instruments. Books Are For The Scholar's Idle Times. When He Can Read God Directly, The Hour Is Too Precious To Be Wasted In Other Men's Transcripts Of Their Readings.

For What Are They All In Their High Conceit, When Man In The Bush With God May Meet?

I Will Not Hide My Tastes Or Aversions. If You Are True, But Not In The Same Truth With Me, Cleave To Your Companions; I Will Seek My Own.

Philanthropies And Charities Have A Certain Air Of Quackery.

For Everything You Gain, You Lose Something.

Missing Someone

The Instincts Of The Ant Are Very Unimportant, Considered As The Ants; But The Moment A Ray Of Relation Is Seen To Be A Monitor, A Little Body With A Mighty Heart, Then All Its Habits, Even That Said To Be Recently Observed, That It Never Sleeps, Become Sublime.

Whatever Limits Us We Call Fate.

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.

All My Hurts My Garden Spade Can Heal.

The Maxim Of Courts Is That Manner Is Power.

One Of The Illusions Of Life Is That The Present Hour Is Not The Critical, Decisive One.

If A Man Is At Heart Just, Then In So Far Is He God; The Safety Of God, The Immortality Of God, The Majesty Of God Do Enter Into That Man With Justice.

The Action Of The Soul Is Oftener In That Which Is Felt And Left Unsaid Than In That Which Is Said In Any Conversation. It Broods Over Every Society, And Men Unconsciously Seek For It In Each Other.

Too Busy With The Crowded Hour To Fear To Live Or Die.

In America And Europe, The Nomadism Is Of Trade And Curiosity.

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.

Our Housekeeping Is Mendicant, Our Arts, Our Occupations, Our Marriages, Our Religion We Have Not Chosen But Society Has Chosen For Us.

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

When A Man Lives With God, His Voice Shall Be As Sweet As The Murmur Of The Brook And Rustle Of The Corn.

Our Poets Are Men Of Talents Who Sing, And Not The Children Of Music.

The Dice Of God Are Always Loaded.

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

As We Refine, Our Checks Become Finer. If We Rise To Spiritual Culture, The Antagonism Takes A Spiritual Form.

Truth Is Always Present; It Only Needs To Lift The Iron Lids Of The Mind's Eye To Read Its Oracles.

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.

If You Tax Too High, The Revenue Will Yield Nothing.

A Great Man Scarcely Knows How He Dines, How He Dresses; But Without Railing Or Precision, His Living Is Natural And Poetic.

The Power Of A Man Increases Steadily By Continuance In One Direction. He Becomes Acquainted With The Resistances And With His Own Tools; Increases His Skill And Strength And Learns The Favorable Moments And Favorable Accidents.

The True Poem Is The Poet's Mind.

Nature Is Upheld By Antagonism.

Our Eyes Are Holden That We Cannot See Things That Stare Us In The Face, Until The Hour Arrives When The Mind Is Ripened; Then We Behold Them, And The Time When We Saw Them Not Is Like A Dream.

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.

Books Are The Best Of Things If Well Used; If Abused, Among The Worst. They Are Good For Nothing But To Inspire. I Had Better Never See A Book Than Be Warped By Its Attraction Clean Out Of My Own Orbit, And Made A Satellite Instead Of A System.

By The Rude Bridge That Arched The Flood, Their Flag To April's Breeze Unfurled, Here Once The Embattled Farmers Stood, And Fired The Shot Heard Round The World.

In Spite Of Virtue And The Muse, Nemesis Will Have Her Dues, And All Our Struggles And Our Toils Tighter Wind The Giant Coils.

To Different Minds, The Same World Is A Hell, And A Heaven Depending On Whether They Compare It To Something Better And So Feel Disappointed And Bitter Or Something Worse And So Feel Relieved And Grateful.

The State Is Our Neighbors; Our Neighbors Are The State.

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

Men Are Respectable Only As They Respect.

In Politics And In Trade, Bruisers And Pirates Are Of Better Promise Than Talkers And Clerks.

Wherever There Is Power There Is Age.

Give Me Insight Into Today And You May Have The Antique And Future Worlds.

Only An Inventor Knows How To Borrow, And Every Man Is Or Should Be An Inventor.

No Sensible Person Ever Made An Apology.

Most People, Who Have Quit Smoking, Have Had At Least One Unsuccessful Try In The Past. It Is Not Important How Many Times You Try To Quit. The Only Important Thing Is, That Eventually You Stay Quit

Our Strength Grows Out Of Our Weakness.

He Is Great Who Confers The Most Benefits.

I Know And See Too Well, When Not Voluntarily Blind, The Speedy Limits Opersons Called High And Worthy.

One Man Pins Me To The Wall, While With Another I Walk Among The Stars

It Is Not The Irregular Hours Or Irregular Diet That Makes The Romantic Life.

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

So Much Of Our Time Is Spent In Preparation, So Much In Routine, And So Much In Retrospect, That The Amount Of Each Person's Genius Is Confined To A Very Few Hours.

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

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

Live Well, Learn Plenty, Laugh Often, Love Much.

The Task Ahead Of Us Is Never As Great As The Power Behind Us.

The Whole Value Of The Dime Is In Knowing What To Do With It.

And What Is Genius But Finer Love, A Love Impersonal, A Love Of The Flower And Perfection Of Things, And A Desire To Draw A New Picture Or Copy Of The Same? It Looks To The Cause And Life: It Proceeds From Within Outward, Whilst Talent Goes From Without Inward.

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.

The Superstition Respecting Power And Office Is Going To The Ground. The Stream Of Human Affairs Flows Its Own Way, And Is Very Little Affected By The Activity Of Legislators. What Great Masses Of Men Wish Done, Will Be Done; And They Do Not Wish It For A Freak, But Because It Is Their State And Natural End.

Infancy Conforms To Nobody; All Conform To It.

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.

Yourself A Newborn Bard Of The Holy Ghost, Cast Behind You All Conformity, And Acquaint Men At First Hand With Deity.

Each Man Too Is A Tyrant In Tendency, Because He Would Impose His Idea On Others; And Their Trick Is Their Natural Defence. Jesuswould Absorb The Race; But Tom Paine Or The Coarsest Blasphemer Helps Humanity By Resisting This Exuberance Of Power.

Wherever There Is Power, There Is Age. Don't Be Deceived By Dimples And Curls. I Tell You That Babe Is A Thousand Years Old.

In Talking With Scholars, I Observe That They Lost On Ruder Companions Those Years Of Boyhood Which Alone Could Give Imaginative Literature A Religious And Infinite Quality In Their Esteem.

The Poorest Experience Is Rich Enough For All The Purposes Of Expressing Thought

A Man Must Keep An Eye On His Servants, If He Would Not Have Them Rule Him.

A Chief Event Of Life Is The Day In Which We Have Encountered A Mind That Startled Us.

In Self-trust All The Virtues Are Comprehended.

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

Christian Inspirational

The Craft Of The Merchant Is This Bringing A Thing Where It Abounds To Where It Is Costly.

The Way To Learn German, Is, To Read The Same Dozen Pages Over And Over A Hundred Times, Till You Know Every Word And Particle In Them, And Can Pronounce And Repeat Them By Heart.

A Man Is What He Thinks About All Day Long.

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

All Great Men Come Out Of The Middle Classes.

The Best Of Life Is Conversation, And The Greatest Success Is Confidence, Or Perfect Understanding Between Sincere People.

Greatness Is A Property For Which No Man Gets Credit Too Soon; It Must Be Possessed Long Before It Is Acknowledged.

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

Hence, The Less Government We Have, The Better,--the Fewer Laws, And The Less Confided Power. The Antidote To This Abuse Of Formalgovernment, Is, The Influence Of Private Character, The Growth Of The Individual; The Appearance Of The Principal To Supersede The Proxy; The Appearance Of The Wise Man, Of Whom The Existing Government, Is, It Must Be Owned, But A Shabby Imitation.

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

No Man Can Have Society Upon His Own Terms.

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.

The Imitator Dooms Himself To Hopeless Mediocrity.

The Sentiment Of Virtue Is A Reverence And Delight In The Presence Of Certain Divine Laws. It Perceives That This Homely Game Of Life We Play, Covers, Under What Seem Foolish Details, Principles That Astonish.

That Which Befits Us, Embosomed In Beauty And Wonder As We Are, Is Cheerfulness, And Courage, And The Endeavor To Realize Our Aspirations. Shall Not The Heart Which Has Received So Much, Trust The Power By Which It Lives? May It Not Quit Other Leadings, And Listen To The Soul That Has Guided It So Gently, And Taught It So Much, Secure That The Future Will Be Worthy Of The Past?

Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit.

Give No Bounties: Make Equal Laws: Secure Life And Prosperity And You Need Not Give Alms.

Politics Is A Deleterious Profession, Like Some Poisonous Handicrafts.

Stay At Home In Your Mind. Don't Recite Other People's Opinions.

Every Known Fact In Natural Science Was Divined By The Presentiment Of Somebody, Before It Was Actually Verified.

Native American

We Teach Boys To Be Such Men As We Are. We Do Not Teach Them To Aspire To Be All They Can. We Do Not Give Them A Training As If Webelieved In Their Noble Nature. We Scarce Educate Their Bodies. We Do Not Train The Eye And The Hand. We Exercise Their Understandings To The Apprehension And Comparison Of Some Facts, To A Skill In Numbers, In Words; We Aim To Make Accountants, Attorneys, Engineers; But Not To Make Able, Earnest, Great- Hearted Men.

War Disorganizes, But It Is To Reorganize.

Work And Thou Canst Escape The Reward; Whether The Work Be Fine Or Course, Planting Corn Or Writing Epics, So Only It Be Honest Work, Done To Thine Own Approbation, It Shall Earn A Reward To The Senses As Well As To The Thought.

If The Race Is Good, So Is The Place.

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

To Different Minds, The Same World Is A Hell, And A Heaven.

A Man In The View Of Absolute Goodness, Adores, With Total Humility. Every Step Downward, Is A Step Upward. The Man Who Renounceshimself, Comes To Himself.

In These Divine Pleasures Permitted To Me Of Walks In The June Night Under Moon And Stars, I Can Put My Life As A Fact Before Me And Stand Aloof From Its Honor And Shame.

A Philosopher Must Be More Than A Philosopher.

What King Has He Not Taught State, As Talma Taught Napoleon? What Maiden Has Not Found Him Finer Than Her Delicacy? What Lover Has He Not Outloved? What Sage Has He Not Outseen? What Gentleman Has He Not Instructed In The Rudeness Of His Behavior?

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 Only Money Of God Is God. He Pays Never With Any Thing Less, Or Any Thing Else.

The Counting-room Maxims Liberally Expounded Are Laws Of The Universe. The Merchant's Economy Is A Coarse Symbol Of The Soul's Economy. It Is, To Spend For Power, And Not For Pleasure.

Housekeeping Is Not Beautiful; It Cheers And Raises Neither The Husband, The Wife, Nor The Child; Neither The Host Nor The Guest;it Oppresses Women. A House Kept To The End Of Prudence Is Laborious Without Joy; A House Kept To The End Of Display Is Impossible To All But A Few Women, And Their Success Is Dearly Bought.

Every Wall Is A Door.

The Multitude Of False Churches Accredits The True Religion.

Those Who Live To The Future Must Always Appear Selfish To Those Who Live To The Present.

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.

Every Great Man Is Unique.

Truth Is Handsomer Than The Affectation Of Love. Your Goodness Must Have Some Edge To It, Else It Is None.

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

Nature Is Not Slow To Equip Us In The Prison-uniform Of The Party To Which We Adhere.

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.

It Is Never Too Late To Do Right.

All Public Facts Are To Be Individualized, All Private Facts Are To Be Generalized.

The Glance Is Natural Magic. The Mysterious Communication Established Across A House Between Two Entire Strangers, Moves All The Springs Of Wonder. The Communication By The Glance Is In The Greatest Part Not Subject To The Control Of The Will. It Is The Bodily Symbol Of Identity With Nature. We Look Into The Eyes To Know If This Other Form Is Another Self, And The Eyes Will Not Lie, But Make A Faithful Confession What Inhabitant Is There.

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.

If I Know Your Sect, I Anticipate Your Argument

The Bulk Of Mankind Believe In Two Gods. They Are Under One Dominion Here In The House, As Friend And Parent, In Social Circles, In Letters, In Art, In Love, In Religion; But In Mechanics, In Dealing With Steam And Climate, In Trade, In Politics, They Think They Come Under Another.

My Own Mind Is The Direct Revelation Which I Have From God And Far Least Liable To Mistake In Telling His Will Of Any Revelation.

Science Finds It Methods.

Men Consort In Camp And Town But The Poet Dwells Alone.

A Sturdy Lad From New Hampshire Or Vermont Who In Turn Tries All The Professions, Who Teams It, Farms It, Peddles, Keeps A School,preaches, Edits A Newspaper, Goes To Congress, Buys A Township, And So Forth, In Successive Years, And Always Like A Cat Falls On His Feet, Is Worth A Hundred Of These City Dolls. 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.

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

God May Forgive Sins, He Said, But Awkwardness Has No Forgiveness In Heaven Or Earth.

All I Know Is Reception; I Am And I Have: But I Do Not Get, And When I Fancied I Had Gotten Anything, I Found I Did Not.

Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth.

The Eloquence Of One Stimulates All The Rest, Some Up To The Speaking-point, And All Others To A Degree That Makes Them Good Receivers And Conductors, And They Avenge Themselves For Their Enforced Silence By Increased Loquacity On Their Return.

Every Man I Meet Is In Some Way My Superior...

Circumstance Does Not Make The Man. Circumstance Reveals Man To Himself.

The New Statement Will Comprise The Skepticisms, As Well As The Faiths Of Society, And Out Of Unbeliefs A Creed Shall Be Formed. For, Skepticisms Are Not Gratuitous Or Lawless, But Are Limitations Of The Affirmative Statement, And The New Philosophy Must Take Them In, And Make Affirmations Outside Of Them, Just As Much As Must Include The Oldest Beliefs.

What Is The End Of Human Life? It Is Not, Believe Me, The Chief End Of Man That He Should Make A Fortune And Beget Children Whose End Is Likewise To Make A Fortune, But It Is, In Few Words, That He Should Explore Himself.

The Astronomers Said, 'give Us Matter And A Little Motion And We Will Construct The Universe. It Is Not Enough That We Should Have Matter, We Must Also Have A Single Impulse, One Shove To Launch The Mass And Generate The Harmony Of The Centrifugal And Centripetal Forces.' ... There Is No End To The Consequences Of The Act. That Famous Aboriginal Push Propagates Itself Through All The Balls Of The System, And Through Every Atom Of Every Ball.

The Wise Man, The True Friend, The Finished Character, We Seek Everywhere, And Only Find In Fragments.

Nature May Be As Selfishly Studied As Trade. Astronomy To The Selfish Becomes Astrology; Psychology, Mesmerism (with Intent To Show Where Aour Spoons Are Gone); And Anatomy And Physiology Become Phrenology And Palmistry.

Passion, Though A Bad Regulator, Is A Powerful Spring.

The Highest Beauty Should Be Plain Set.

There Is Nothing Capricious In Nature And The Implanting Of A Desire Indicates That Its Gratification Is In The Constitution Of The Creature That Feel It.

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

Road To Success

Men Grind And Grind In The Mill Of A Truism, And Nothing Comes Out But What Was Put In. But The Moment They Desert The Tradition For A Spontaneous Thought, Then Poetry, Wit, Hope, Virtue, Learning, Anecdote, And All Flock To Their Aid.

A Fact Is The End Or Last Issue Of Spirit. The Visible Creation Is The Terminus Or The Circumference Of The Invisible World.

I Read The Other Day Some Verses Written By An Eminent Painter Which Were Original And Not Conventional.

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.

Other World? There Is No Other World; Here Or Nowhere Is The Whole Fact.

Genius Always Finds Itself A Century Too Early.

Every Natural Power Exhilarates; A True Talent Delights The Possessor First.

Proverbs Are The Literature Of Reason, Or The Statements Of Absolute Truth, Without Qualification. Like The Sacred Books Of Each Nation, They Are The Sanctuary Of Its Intuitions.

Man Was Born To Be Rich, Or To Inevitably Grow Rich, By The Use Of His Faculties: By The Union Of Thought With Nature.

But Whoso Is Heroic Will Always Find Crises To Try His Edge.

Hitch Your Wagon To A Star.

Proverbs, Like The Sacred Books Of Each Nation, Are The Sanctuary Of The Intuitions. That Which The Droning World, Chained To Appearances, Will Not Allow The Realist To Say In His Own Words, It Will Suffer Him To Say In Proverbs Without Contradiction.

Delicious Is A Just And Firm Encounter Of Two In A Thought, In A Feeling.

No Man Gains Credit For His Cowardly Courtesies.

And I Myself, In Rome, Heard It Said Openly In The Streets, "if There Is A Hell, Then Rome Is Built On It." Martin Luther, Against The Roman Papacy, An Institution Of The Devil London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

I Cannot Forgive A Scholar His Homeless Despondency.

The Essence Of Age Is Intellect. Wherever That Appears, We Call It Old.

It Is One Soul Which Animates All Men.

To Clothe The Fiery Thought In Simple Words Succeeds, For Still The Craft Of Genius Is To Mask A King In Weeds.

There Is A Power In Love To Divine Another's Destiny Better Than That Other Can, And By Heroic Encouragements, Hold Him To His Task. What Has Friendship So Signal As Its Sublime Attraction To Whatever Virtue Is In Us?

A Great Man Is Always Willing To Be Little.

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

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.

We See The World Piece By Piece, As The Sun, The Moon, The Animal, The Tree; But The Whole, Of Which These Are Shining Parts, Is The Soul.

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.

Yet America Is A Poem In Our Eyes; Its Ample Geography Dazzles The Imagination, And It Will Not Wait Long For Metres.

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.

Nature Hates Monopolies And Exceptions.

No Facts Are To Me Sacred; None Are Profane; I Simply Experiment, An Endless Seeker, With No Past At My Back.

The Secret Of Drunkenness Is, That It Insulates Us In Thought, Whilst It Unites Us In Feeling.

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

Fame Is Proof That The People Are Gullible.

Behind Us, As We Go, All Things Assume Pleasing Forms, As Clouds Do Far Off. Not Only Things Familiar And Stale, But Even The Tragic And Terrible, Are Comely, As They Take Their Place In The Pictures Of Memory.

Our Expenses Are All For Conformity.

Guard Well Your Spare Moments. They Are Like Uncut Diamonds. Discard Them And Their Value Will Never Be Known. Improve Them And They Will Become The Brightest Gems In A Useful Life.

Not Gold, But Only Man Can Make A People Great And Strong; Men Who, For Truth And Honor's Sake, Stand Fast And Suffer Long.

There Is A Principle Which Is The Basis Of Things, Which All Speech Aims To Say, And All Action To Evolve, A Simple, Quiet, Undescribed, Undescribable Presence, Dwelling Very Peacefully In Us, Our Rightful Lord: We Are Not To Do, But To Let Do; Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon.

Every Man Is Grave Alone.

Now Every One Must Do After His Kind, Be He Asp Or Angel, And These Must.

Trending Author

Eugene Delacroix

Anna Nicole Smith

Jacques-Henri Lartigue

Category