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What A Benefit Would The American Government, Not Yet Relieved Of Its Extreme Need, Render To Itself, And To Every City, Village And Hamlet In The States, If It Would Tax Whiskey And Rum Almost To The Point Of Prohibition! Was It Bonaparte Who Said That He Found Vices Very Good Patriots? "he Got Five Millions From The Love Of Brandy, And He Should Be Glad To Know Which Of The Virtues Would Pay Him As Much." 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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What A Benefit Would

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What A Benefit Would The American Government, Not Yet Relieved Of Its Extreme Need, Render To Itself, And To Every City, Village And Hamlet In The States, If It Would Tax Whiskey And Rum Almost To The Point Of Prohibition! Was It Bonaparte Who Said That He Found Vices Very Good Patriots? "he Got Five Millions From The Love Of Brandy, And He Should Be Glad To Know Which Of The Virtues Would Pay Him As Much." 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.

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The Silence That Accepts Merit As The Most Natural Thing In The World Is The Highest Applause.

Everything Is Made Of One Hidden Stuff.

Earth And Nature

Intellectual Tasting Of Life Will Not Supersede Muscular Activity.

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.

The Only Sin Is Limitation. As Soon As You Once Come Up With A Man's Limitations, It Is All Over With Him. Has He Talents? Has Heenterprise? Has He Knowledge? It Boots Not. Infinitely Alluring And Attractive Was He To You Yesterday, A Great Hope, A Sea To Swim In; Now, You Have Found His Shores, Found It A Pond, And You Care Not If You Never See It Again.

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

It's A Luxury To Be Understood.

Without Ambition One Starts Nothing. Without Work One Finishes Nothing. The Prize Will Not Be Sent To You. You Have To Win It.

The Socialism Of Our Day Has Done Good Service In Setting Men To Thinking How Certain Civilizing Benefits, Now Only Enjoyed By Theopulent, Can Be Enjoyed By All.

What We Call Results Are Beginnings.

The Secrets Of Life Are Not Shown Except To Sympathy And Likeness.

I Believe It Is The Conviction Of The Purest Men, That The Net Amount Of Man And Man Does Not Much Vary. Each Is Incomparably Superior To His Companion In Some Faculty. His Want Of Skill In Other Directions, Has Added To His Fitness For His Own Work.

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

Do Not Tell Me Of My Obligation To Put All Poor Men In Good Situations. Are They My Poor? I Tell Thee, Thou Foolish Philanthropist, That I Grudge The Dollar, The Dime, The Cent, I Give To Such Men As Do Not Belong To Me And To Whom I Do Not Belong

Meek Young Men Grow Up In Libraries.

Religious Literature Has Eminent Examples, And If We Run Over Our Private List Of Poets, Critics, Philanthropists And Philosophers, We Shall Find Them Infected With This Dropsy And Elephantiasis, Which We Ought To Have Tapped.

Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm.

The Crowning Fortune Of A Man Is To Be Born To Some Pursuit Which Finds Him Employment And Happiness, Whether It Be To Make Baskets, Or Broadswords, Or Canals, Or Statues, Or Songs.

Of Course You Will Insist On Modesty In The Children, And Respect To Their Teachers, But If The Boy Stops You In Your Speech, Cries Out That You Are Wrong And Sets You Right, Hug Him!

Let Him Be Great, And Love Shall Follow Him. Nothing Is More Deeply Punished Than The Neglect Of The Affinities By Which Alone Society Should Be Formed, And The Insane Levity Of Choosing Associates By Others Eyes.

You Never Know How You Look Through Other People's Eyes.

Truth Is The Summit Of Being.

The Bitterest Tragic Element In Life To Be Derived From An Intellectual Source Is The Belief In A Brute Fate Or Destiny.

Others Can Get In Your Way Temporarily, But Only You Can Get Out Of Your Way Permanently. Our Best Thoughts Come From Others.

But What Help From These Fineries Or Pedantries? What Help From Thought? Life Is Not Dialectics. We, I Think, In These Times, Have Had Lessons Enough Of The Futility Of Criticism.

Test Of The Poet Is Knowledge Of Love, For Eros Is Older Than Saturn Or Jove; Never Was Poet, Of Late Or Of Yore, Who Was Not Tremulous With Love-lore.

This Body, Full Of Faults, Has Yet One Great Quality: Whatever It Encounters In This Temporal Life Depends Upon One's Actions.

Whenever A Mind Is Simple And Receives An Old Wisdom, Old Things Pass Away,--means, Teachers, Texts, Temples Fall; It Lives Now, And Absorbs Past And Future Into Present Hour. All Things Are Made Sacred By Relation To It,--one As Much As Another.

Our Prejudices Are Our Robbers, They Rob Us Valuable Things In Life. People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

The World-spirit Is A Good Swimmer, And Storms And Waves Can Not Drown Him. He Snaps His Fingers At Laws; And So, Throughout History, Heaven Seems To Affect Low And Poor Means. Through The Years And The Centuries, Through Evil Agents, Through Toys And Atoms, A Great And Beneficent Tendency Irresistibly Streams.

Nature Is A Rag-merchant, Who Works Up Every Shred And Ort And End Into New Creations; Like A Good Chemist, Whom I Found, The Other Day, In His Laboratory, Converting His Old Shirts Into Pure White Sugar.

In Different Hours, A Man Represents Each Of Several Of His Ancestors, As If There Were Seven Or Eight Of Us Rolled Up In Each Man's Skin, - Seven Or Eight Ancestors At Least, And They Constitute The Variety Of Notes For That New Piece Of Music Which His Life Is.

It Is The Property Of The Religious Spirit To Be The Most Refining Of All Influences. No External Advantages, No Culture Of The Tastes, No Habit Of Command, No Association With The Elegant, Or Even Depth Of Affection, Can Bestow That Delicacy And That Grandeur Of Bearing Which Belong Only To The Mind Accustomed To Celestial Conversation,--all Else Is But Gilt And Cosmetics, Beside This, As Expressed In Every Look And Gesture.

I Think It Is The Best Of Humanity That Goes Out To Walk. In Happy Hours, I Think All Affairs May Be Wisely Postponed For Walking.

It Is Better To Suffer Injustice Than To Do It.

A Man Of Genius Is Privileged Only As Far As He Is Genius. His Dullness Is As Insupportable As Any Other Dullness.

Religion Is As Effectively Destroyed By Bigotry As By Indifference.

It Is The Delight Of Vulgar Talent To Dazzle And To Bind The Beholder. But True Genius Seeks To Defend Us From Itself. True Geniuswill Not Impoverish, But Will Liberate, And Add New Sense. If A Wise Man Should Appear In Our Village, He Would Create, In Those Who Conversed With Him, A New Consciousness Of Wealth, By Opening Their Eyes To Unobserved Advantages; He Would Establish A Sense Of Immovable Equality, Calm Us With Assurances That We Could Not Be Cheated; As Every One Would Discern The Checks And Guarantees Of Condition.

Health, South Wind, Books, Old Trees, A Boat, A Friend.

If The Colleges Were Better, If They Had The Power Of Imparting Valuable Thought, Creative Principles, Truths Which Become Powers, Thoughts Which Become Talents, - If They Could Cause That A Mind Not Profound Should Become Profound, - We Should All Rush To Their Gates: Instead Of Contriving Inducements To Draw Students, You Would Need To Set Police At The Gates To Keep Order In The In-rushing Multitude.

It Is Handsomer To Remain In The Establishment Better Than The Establishment, And Conduct That In The Best Manner, Than To Make Asally Against Evil By Some Single Improvement, Without Supporting It By A Total Regeneration.

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

We Must Be Courteous To A Man As We Are To A Picture, Which We Are Willing To Give The Advantage Of A Good Light.

Science In England, In America, Is Jealous Of Theory, Hates The Name Of Love And Moral Purpose. There's Revenge For This Humanity.what Manner Of Man Does Science Make? The Boy Is Not Attracted. He Says, I Do Not Wish To Be Such A Kind Of Man As My Professor Is.

A Walk In The Woods Is Only An Exalted Dream.

What Is Well Done, I Feel As If I Did; What Is Ill-done, I Reck Not Of.

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

There Are Three Wants Which Never Can Be Satisfied: That Of The Rich, Who Wants Something More; That Of The Sick, Who Wants Something Different; And That Of The Traveler, Who Says Anywhere But Here.

The Eye Of Prudence May Never Shut.

The Great Make Its Feel, First Of All, The Indifference Of Circumstances. They Call Into Activity The Higher Perceptions, And Subdue The Low Habits Of Comfort And Luxury; But The Higher Perceptions Find Their Objects Everywhere; Only The Low Habits Need Palaces And Banquets.

The Sky Is The Daily Bread Of The Eyes.

The Spirit Of Our American Radicalism Is Destructive And Aimless; It Is Not Loving; It Has No Ulterior And Divine Ends; But Is Destructive Only Out Of Hatred And Selfishness.

For You, O Broker, There Is No Other Principle But Arithmetic. For Me, Commerce Is Of Trivial Import; Love, Faith, Truth Of Character, The Aspiration Of Man, These Are Sacred; Nor Can I Detach One Duty, Like You, From All Other Duties, And Concentrate My Forces Mechanically On The Payment Of Moneys.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

All Violence, All That Is Dreary And Repels, Is Not Power, But The Absence Of Power.

But I Cannot Recite, Even Thus Rudely, Laws Of The Intellect, Without Remembering That Lofty And Sequestered Class Of Men Who Have Been Its Prophets And Oracles, The High-priesthood Of The Pure Reason, The Trismegisti, The Expounders Of The Principles Of Thought From Age To Age.

That Which We Persist In Doing Becomes Easier To Do, Not That The Nature Of The Thing Has Changed But That Our Power To Do Has Increased.

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.

Draw, If Thou Canst, The Mystic Line, Severing Rightly His From Thine, Which Is Human, Which Divine.

Mankind Divides Itself Into Two Classes,--benefactors And Malefactors. The Second Class Is Vast; The First A Handful.

The World Makes Way For The Man Who Knows Where He Is Going

Greek Architecture Is The Flowering Of Geometry.

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

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 Beauty That Shimmers In The Yellow Afternoons Of October, Who Could Ever Clutch It? Go Forth To Find It, And It Is Gone: 't Is Only A Mirage As You Look From The Windows Of Diligence.

The Worst Of Charity Is That The Lives You Are Asked To Preserve Are Not Worth Preserving.

We Must Be Lovers, And At Once The Impossible Becomes Possible.

Impossible Becomes Possible

I Hate The Prostitution Of The Name Of Friendship To Signify Modish And Worldly Alliances.

Society Has Really No Graver Interest Than The Well-being Of The Literary Class.

Walking Has The Best Value As Gymnastics Of The Mind.

It Is Vain To Keep A Secret From One Who Has A Right To Know It. It Will Tell Itself.

Genial Manners Are Good, And Power Of Accommodation To Any Circumstance, But The High Prize Of Life, The Crowning Fortune Of A Man Is To Be Born With A Bias To Some Pursuit, Which Finds Him In Employment And Happiness, -- Whether It Be To Make Baskets, Or Broadswords, Or Canals, Or Statutes, Or Songs. I Doubt Not This Was The Meaning Of Socrates, When He Pronounced Artists The Only Truly Wise, As Being Actually, Not Apparently So.

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

Hast Thou Named All The Birds Without A Gun?

All I Have Seen Teaches Me To Trust The Creator For All I Have Not Seen.

Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Short Distances The Senses Are Despotic.

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

We Legislate Against Forestalling And Monopoly; We Would Have A Common Granary For The Poor; But The Selfishness Which Hoards Thecorn For High Prices, Is The Preventative Of Famine; And The Law Of Self-preservation Is Surer Policy Than Any Legislation Can Be.

My Garden Is A Forest Ledge Which Older Forest S Bound; The Banks Slope Down To The Blue Lake-edge, Then Plunge To Depths Profound!

It Is Said That When Manners Are Licentious, A Revolution Is Always Near: The Virtue Of Woman Being The Main Girth And Bandage Ofsociety; Because A Man Will Not Lay Up An Estate For Children Any Longer Than Whilst He Believes Them To Be His Own.

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

Passion, Though A Bad Regulator, Is A Powerful Spring. Any Absorbing Passion Has The Effect To Deliver From The Little Coils And Cares Of Every Day: 'tis The Heat Which Sets Our Human Atoms Spinning, Overcomes The Friction Of Crossing Thresholds, And First Addresses In Society, And Gives Us A Good Start And Speed, Easy To Continue, When Once It Is Begun.

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.

The Evils Of Popular Government Appear Greater Than They Are; There Is Compensation For Them In Spirit And Energy It Awakens.

There Are Men Whose Manners Have The Same Essential Splendor As The Simple And Awful Sculpture On The Friezes Of The Parthenon, And The Remains Of The Earliest Greek Art.

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.

The Secret Of The Illusoriness Is In The Necessity Of A Succession Of Moods Or Objects. Gladly We Would Anchor, But The Anchorageis Quicksand.

In Private Places, Among Sordid Objects, An Act Of Truth Or Heroism Seems At Once To Draw To Itself The Sky As Its Temple, The Sun As Its Cradle. Nature Stretches Out Her Arms To Embrace Man, Only Let His Thoughts Be Of Equal Greatness.

A Cheerful, Intelligent Face Is The End Of Culture.

The Masters Painted For Joy, And Knew Not That Virtue Had Gone Out Of Them. They Could Not Paint The Like In Cold Blood. The Masters Of English Lyric Wrote Their Songs So. It Was A Fine Efflorescence Of Fine Powers.

One Must Be An Inventor To Read Well.

Creative Writers

We Know More From Nature Than We Can At Will Communicate.

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

Wealth Brings With It Its Own Checks And Balances. The Basis Of Political Economy Is Noninterference. The Only Safe Rule Is Found In The Self-adjusting Meter Of Demand And Supply. Open The Doors Of Opportunity To Talent And Virtue And They Will Do Themselves Justice, And Property Will Not Be In Bad Hands. In A Free And Just Commonwealth, Property Rushes From The Idle And Imbecile To The Industrious, Brave And Persevering.

A Day For Toil, An Hour For Sport, But For A Friend Is Life Too Short.

I Confess Myself Utterly At A Loss In Suggesting Particular Reforms In Our Ways Of Teaching. No Discretion That Can Be Lodged With A School-committee, With The Overseers Or Visitors Of An Academy, Of A College, Can At All Avail To Reach These Difficulties And Perplexities, But They Solve Themselves When We Leave Institutions And Address Individuals.

The Years In Your Life Are Less Important Than The Life In Your Years.

Life Is A Festival Only To The Wise. Seen From The Nook And Chimneyside Of Prudence, It Wears A Ragged And Dangerous Front.

The Right Merchant Is One Who Has The Just Average Of Faculties We Call Common Sense; A Man Of A Strong Affinity For Facts, Who Makes Up His Decision On What He Has Seen. He Is Thoroughly Persuaded Of The Truths Of Arithmetic. There Is Always A Reason, In The Man, For His Good Or Bad Fortune In Making Money. Men Talk As If There Were Some Magic About This. He Knows That All Goes On The Old Road, Pound For Pound, Cent For Cent - For Every Effect A Perfect Cause - And That Good Luck Is Another Name For Tenacity Of Purpose.

Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet. Then All Things Are At Risk. It Is As When A Conflagration Has Broken Out In A Great City, And No Man Knows What Is Safe, Or Where It Will End.

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

Marriage Is The Perfection Which Love Aimed At, Ignorant Of What It Sought.

The Virtue You Would Like To Have, Assume It Is Already Yours, Appropriate It, Enter Into The Part And Live The Character Just As The Great Actor Is Absorbed In... The Part He Plays.

Wouldst Thou Shut Up The Avenues Of Ill, Pay Every Debt As If God Wrote The Bill.

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

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.

I Think I Have Done Well, If I Have Acquired A New Word From A Good Author; And My Business With Him Is To Find My Own, Though Itwere Only To Melt Him Down Into An Epithet Or An Image For Daily Use.

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.

What We Love That We Have, But By Desire We Bereave Ourselves Of The Love.

What Opium Is Instilled Into All Disaster? It Shows Formidable As We Approach It, But There Is At Last No Rough Rasping Friction,but The Most Slippery Sliding Surfaces. We Fall Soft On A Thought.

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

Ethics And Religion Differ Herein; That The One Is The System Of Human Duties Commencing From Man; The Other, From God. Religion Includes The Personality Of God; Ethics Does Not.

Society Cannot Do Without Cultivated Men. As Soon As The First Wants Are Satisfied, The Higher Wants Become Imperative.

The Life Of Man Is A Self-evolving Circle.

Railroad Iron Is A Magician's Rod, In Its Power To Evoke The Sleeping Energies Of Land And Water.

Nobody Trips Over Mountains. It Is The Small Pebble That Causes You To Stumble. Pass All The Pebbles In Your Path And You Will Find You Have Crossed The Mountain. The Mind Does Not Create What It Perceives, Anymore Than The Eye Creates The Rose.

All Good Conversation, Manners, And Action Come From A Spontaneity Which Forgets Usages And Makes The Moment Great.

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?

Nature Avenges Herself Speedily On The Hard Pedantry That Would Chain Her Waves. She Is No Literalist. Every Thing Must Be Taken Genially, And We Must Be At The Top Of Our Condition, To Understand Any Thing Rightly.

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise.

Love And You Shall Be Loved. All Love Is Mathematically Just, As Much As Two Sides Of An Algebraic Equation.

The Whole Constitution Of Property On Its Present Tenures, Is Injurious, And Its Influence On Persons Deteriorating And Degrading.

Love Is Like Wildflowers; It's Often Found In The Most Unlikely Places.

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.

Whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist.

Being Different

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

God Hid The Whole World In Thy Heart.

To Believe In Luck, If It Were Not A Solecism So To Use The Word Believe, Is Skepticism.

Pure By Impure Is Not Seen.

A Mob Is A Society Obodies, Voluntarily Bereaving Themselves Oreason, And Traversing Its Work. The Mob Is Man, Voluntarily Descending To The Nature Othe Beast. Its Fit Hour Oactivity Is Night; Its Actions Are Insane, Like Its Whole Constitution.

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.

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

We Swim, Day By Day, On A River Of Delusions, And Are Effectually Amused With Houses And Towns In The Air, Of Which The Men Aboutus Are Dupes. But Life Is A Sincerity.

Let Him Be Great, And Love Shall Follow Him.

The Test Of Civilization Is The Power Of Drawing The Most Benefit Out Of Cities.

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

Self Reliance, The Height And Perfection Of Man, Is Reliance On God.

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.

The Passages Of Shakespeare That We Most Prize Were Never Quoted Until Within This Century.

Art Is Not To Be Found By Touring To Egypt, China, Or Peru; If You Cannot Find It At Your Own Door, You Will Never Find It.

Every Man Alone Is Sincere. At The Entrance Of A Second Person, Hypocrisy Begins

The Remedy For All Blunders, The Cure Of Blindness, The Cure Of Crime, Is Love.

There Is Always A Best Way Of Doing Everything, If It Be To Boil An Egg. Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things.

In The Moment When You Make The Least Petition To God, Though It Be But A Silent Wish That He May Approve You, Or Add One Moment To Your Life,--do You Not, In The Very Act, Necessarily Exclude All Other Beings From Your Thought? In That Act, The Soul Stands Alone With God, And Jesus Is No More Present To Your Mind Than Your Brother Or Your Child.

In The Actual World--the Painful Kingdom Of Time And Place--dwell Care, And Canker, And Fear. With Thought, With The Ideal, Is Immortal Hilarity, The Rose Of Joy.

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

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

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

The Intellect Searches Out The Absolute Order Of Things As They Stand In The Mind Of God, And Without The Colors Of Affection. The Intellectual And The Active Powers Seem To Succeed Each Other, And The Exclusive Activity Of The One Generates The Exclusive Activity Of The Other. There Is Something Unfriendly In Each To The Other, But They Are Like The Alternate Periods Of Feeding And Working In Animals; Each Prepares And Will Be Followed By The Other.

Every Mind Must Make Its Choice Between Truth And Repose. It Cannot Have Both.

Music Causes Us To Think Eloquently.

The Religions Of The World Are The Ejaculations Of A Few Imaginative Men.

The President Proclaims War, And Those Senators Who Dissent Are Not Those Who Know Better, But Those Who Can Afford To...democracy Becomes A Government Of Bullies Tempered By Editors.

In This Great Society Wide Lying Around Us, A Critical Analysis Would Find Very Few Spontaneous Actions. It Is Almost All Custom And Gross Sense.

Critical Analysis

The Man For Whom The Law Exists - The Man Of Forms, The Conservative - Is A Tame Man.

The Foundations Of A Person Are Not In Matter But In Spirit.

A Man Is Known By The Books He Reads, By The Company He Keeps, By The Praise He Gives, By His Dress, By His Tastes, By His Distastes, By The Stories He Tells, By His Gait, By The Notion Of His Eye, By The Look Of His House, Of His Chamber; For Nothing On Earth Is Solitary But Every Thing Hath Affinities Infinite.

Those Who Have Ruled Human Destinies, Like Planets, For Thousands Of Years, Were Not Handsome Men.

Every Man Is An Infinitely Repelling Orb, And Holds His Individual Being On That Condition.

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.

A Nation, Like A Tree, Does Not Thrive Well Till It Is Engraffed With A Foreign Stock.

Science Corrects The Old Creeds, Sweeps Away, With Every New Perception, Our Infantile Catechisms, And Necessitates A Faith Commensurate With The Grander Orbits And Universal Laws Which It Discloses Yet It Does Not Surprise The Moral Sentiment That Was Older And Awaited Expectant These Larger Insights.

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.

Character Wants Room; Must Not Be Crowded On By Persons, Nor Be Judged From Glimpses Got In The Press Of Affairs, Or On Few Occasions. It Needs Perspective, As A Great Building.

Consider What You Have In The Smallest Well-chosen Library-a Company Of The Wisest And Wittiest Men Which Can Be Plucked Out Of All Civilized Countries In A Thousand Years. The Men Themselves Were Then Hidden And Inaccessible. They Were Solitary, Impatient Of Interruption, And Fenced By Etiquette. But Now They Are Immortal, And The Thought They Did Not Reveal, Even To Their Bosom Friends, Is Here Written Out In Transparent Words Of Light To Us, Who Are Strangers Of Another Age.

Prudence Is The Virtue Of The Senses. It Is The Science Of Appearances. It Is The Outmost Action Of The Inward Life.

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

London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

There Is A Tendency In Things To Right Themselves, And The War Or Revolution Or Bankruptcy That Shatters Rotten System, Allows Things To Take A New And Natural Order.

Some Men Are Born To Own, And Can Animate All Their Possessions. Others Cannot: Their Owning Is Not Graceful; Seems To Be A Compromise Of Their Character: They Seem To Steal Their Own Dividends.

A Man Known To Us Only As A Celebrity In Politics Or In Trade, Gains Largely In Our Esteem If We Discover That He Has Some Intellectual Taste Or Skill.

Everything In Nature Goes By Law, And Not By Luck.

Not For Nothing One Face, One Character, One Fact Makes Much Impression On Him, And Another None.

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

When A Man Meets His Make, Society Begins.

A Man Should Not Be A Silkworm; Nor A Nation A Tent Of Caterpillars.

We Are Wiser Than We Know.

What Forests Of Laurel We Bring, And The Tears Of Mankind, To Those Who Stood Firm Against The Opinion Of Their Contemporaries!

I See It Only That Thyself Is Here, And Art And Nature, Hope And Fate, Friends, Angels And The Supreme Being Shall Not Be Absent From The Chamber Where Thou Sittest.

Say Thank You! I Want To Hear You Say It Now. Out Loud. 'thank You.' You're Saying Thank You Because Your Faith Is So Strong That You Don't Doubt That Whatever The Problem, You'll Get Through It. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know That Even In The Eye Of The Storm, God Has Put A Rainbow In The Clouds. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know There's No Problem Created That Can Compare To The Creator Of All Things. Say Thank You!

A Man Is A Method, A Progressive Arrangement; A Selecting Principle, Gathering His Like To Him; Wherever He Goes.

If You Would Rule The World Quietly, You Must Keep It Amused.

The Conservative Assumes Sickness As A Necessity, And His Social Frame Is A Hospital, His Total Legislation Is For The Present Distress, A Universe In Slippers And Flannels, With Bib And Papspoon, Swallowing Pills And Herb-tea.

No Rent-roll Nor Army-list Can Dignify Skulking And Dissimulation: And The First Point Of Courtesy Must Always Be Truth, As Really All The Forms Of Good-breeding Point That Way.

My Angel,-his Name Is Freedom,- Choose Him To Be Your King; He Shall Cut Pathways East And West, And Fend You With His Wing.

A Scholar Does Not Wish To Be Always Pumping His Brains; He Wants Gossips.

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.

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.

Steam Is No Stronger Now Than It Was A Hundred Years Ago, But It Is Put To Better Use.

Money Often Costs Too Much, And Power And Pleasure Are Not Cheap.

Though I Am Weak, Yet God, When Prayed, Cannot Withhold His Conquering Aid.

The Power Of A Man Increases Steadily By Continuing In One Direction.

Shakespeare Carries Us To Such A Lofty Strain Of Intelligent Activity, As To Suggest A Wealth Which Beggars His Own; And We Then Feel That The Splendid Works Which He Has Created, And Which In Other Hours We Extol As A Sort Of Self-existent Poetry, Take No Stronger Hold Of Real Nature Than The Shadow Of A Passing Traveller On The Rock. The Inspiration Which Uttered Itself In Hamlet And Lear Could Utter Things As Good From Day To Day, For Ever.

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

A Man Must Consider What A Blindman's-buff Is This Game Of Conformity.

We Are Immersed In Beauty, But Our Eyes Have No Clear Vision.

Intemperance Is The Only Vulgarity.

Enthusiasm Is One Of The Most Powerful Engines Of Success. When You Do A Thing, Do It With All Your Might. Put Your Whole Soul Into It. Stamp It With Your Own Personality. Be Active, Be Energetic, Be Enthusiastic And Faithful, And You Will Accomplish Your Object. Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm.

We Judge Of Man's Wisdom By His Hope.

A Child Convinced Against His Will Is Of The Same Opinion Still. The Reward For A Thing Well Done, Is To Have Done It.

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