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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What Is The End

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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Our Debt To Tradition Through Reading And Conversation Is So Massive, Our Protest So Rare And Insignificant-and This Commonly On The Ground Of Other Reading And Hearing-that In Large Sense, One Would Say There Is No Pure Originality. All Minds Quote. Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands. By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote. It Is As Difficult To Appropriate The Thoughts Of Others As It Is To Invent.

Why Needs A Man Be Rich? Why Must He Have Horses, Fine Garments, Handsome Apartments, Access To Public Houses, And Places Of Amusement? Only For Want Of Thought.

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.

A Deep Man Believes That The Evil Eye Can Whither, The Heart's Blessing Can Heal, And That Love Can Overcome All Odds.

No Society Can Ever Be So Large As One Man.

The Multitude Of False Churches Accredits The True Religion.

The Cheapness Of Man Is Every Day's Tragedy. It Is As Real A Loss That Others Should Be Low, As That We Should Be Low; For We Musthave A Society.

We Will Walk On Our Own Feet; We Will Work With Our Own Hands; We Will Speak Our Own Minds... A Nation Of Men Will For The First Time Exist, Because Each Believes Himself Inspired By The Divine Soul Which Also Inspires All Men.

Money Often Costs Too Much.

Greatest Wealth

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

Black Men Built The Railroads, Not Blue Eyes.

When There Is Sympathy, There Needs But One Wise Man In A Company And All Are Wise,--so, A Blockhead Makes A Blockhead Of His Companion. Wonderful Power To Benumb Possesses This Brother.

The Hearing Ear Is Always Found Close To The Speaking Tongue.

It Is Commonly Said By Farmers, That A Good Pear Or Apple Costs No More Time Or Pains To Rear, Than A Poor One; So I Would Have No Work Of Art, No Speech, Or Action, Or Thought, Or Friend, But The Best.

Persons Are Fine Things, But They Cost So Much! For Thee I Must Pay Me.

We Come To Our Own And Would Make Friends With Matter, Which The Ambitious Chatter Of The Schools Would Persuade Us To Despise. We Can Never Part With It; The Mind Loves Its Old Home: As Water To Our Thirst, So Is Rock, The Ground, To Our Eyes, And Hands, And Feet. It Is Firm Water: It Is Cold Flame: What Health, What Affinity!

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.

The Common Experience Is, That The Man Fits Himself As Well As He Can To The Customary Details Of That Work Or Trade He Falls Into, And Tends It As A Dog Turns A Spit. Then He Is Part Of The Machine He Moves; The Man Is Lost.

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.

For All Symbols Are Fluxional; All Language Is Vehicular And Transitive, And Is Good, As Ferries And Horses Are, For Conveyance, Not As Farms And Houses Are, For Homestead.

Genius Is Always Sufficiently The Enemy Of Genius By Over Influence. The Literature Of Every Nation Bear Me Witness. The English Dramatic Poets Have Shakspearized Now For Two Hundred Years.

Man Is A Piece Of The Universe Made Alive

The World Is Upheld By The Veracity Of Good Men: They Make The Earth Wholesome. They Who Lived With Them Found Life Glad And Nutritious. Life Is Sweet And Tolerable Only In Our Belief In Such Society.

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken. (despite) All The Selfishness That Chills Like East Winds The World, The Whole Human Family Is Bathed With An Element Of Love Like A Fine Ether... The Effect Of The Indulgence Of This Human Affection Is A Certain Cordial Exhilaration.

He Who Has A Thousand Friends Has Not A Friend To Spare, While He Who Has One Enemy Shall Meet Him Everywhere.

Though We Travel The World Over To Find The Beautiful, We Must Carry It With Us, Or We Find It Not. The Best Of Beauty Is A Finer Charm Than Skill In Surfaces, In Outlines, Or Rules Of Art Can Ever Teach, Namely, A Radiation From The Work Of Art Of Human Character, — A Wonderful Expression Through Stone, Or Canvas, Or Musical Sound, Of The Deepest And Simplest Attributes Of Our Nature, And Therefore Most Intelligible At Last To Those Souls Which Have These Attributes.

It Seems To Be A Rule Of Wisdom Never To Rely On Your Memory Alone, Scarcely Even In Acts Of Pure Memory, But To Bring The Past For Judgment Into The Thousand-eyed Present, And Live Ever In A New Day.

A Foolish Consistency Is The Hobgoblin Of Little Minds, Adored By Little Statesmen And Philosophers And Divines.

Our Faith Comes In Moments . . . Yet There Is A Depth In Those Brief Moments Which Constrains Us To Ascribe More Reality To Them Than To All Other Experiences.

Other Men Are Lenses Through Which We Read Our Own Minds. Each Man Seeks Those Of Different Quality From His Own, And Such As Are Good Of Their Kind; That Is, He Seeks Other Men, And The Rest.

Sanity Is Very Rare; Every Man Almost And Every Woman Has A Dash Of Madness.

Why Should We Grope Among The Dry Bones Of The Past, Or Put The Living Generation Into Masquerade Out Of Its Faded Wardrobe?

The Two Parties Which Divide The State, The Party Of Conservatism And That Of Innovation Are Very Old, And Have Disputed The Possession Of The World Ever Since It Was Made ... Now One, Now The Other Gets The Day, And Still The Fight Renews Itself As If For The First Time, Under New Names And Hot Personalities ... Innovation Is The Salient Energy; Conservatism The Pause On The Last Movement.

A Day Is A Miniature Eternity.

Tomorrow Is A New Day. You Shall Begin It Well And Serenely

Conversation Is An Evanescent Relation,--no More.

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

In America The Geography Is Sublime, But The Men Are Not; The Inventions Are Excellent, But The Inventors One Is Sometimes Ashamed Of.

A Man Is A Little Thing Whilst He Works By And For Himself, But, When He Gives Voice To The Rules Of Love And Justice, Is Godlike, His Word Is Current In All Countries; And All Men, Though His Enemies, Are Made His Friends And Obey It As Their Own.

Eloquence Is The Power To Translate A Truth Into Language Perfectly Intelligible To The Person To Whom You Speak.

Men Talk As If Victory Were Something Fortunate. Work Is Victory.

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

The Essence Of Friendship Is Entireness, A Total Magnanimity And Trust. It Must Not Surmise Or Provide For Infirmity. It Treats Its Object As A God, That It Might Deify Both.

Every Really Able Man, In Whatever Direction He Works - A Man Of Large Affairs, An Inventor, A Statesman, An Orator, A Poet, A Painter - If You Talk Sincerely With Him, Considers His Work, However Much Admired, As Far Short Of What It Should Be. What Is This Better, This Flying Ideal, But The Perpetual Promise Of His Creator?

The World Exists For The Education Of Each Man.

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

We Learn Geology The Morning After The Earthquake.

It Is Rare To Find A Man Who Believes In His Own Thoughts Or Speaks That Which He Is Created To Say. As Nothing Astonishes Men So Much As Common Sense And Plain Dealing, So Nothing Is More Rare In Any Man Than An Act Of His Own...feel Yourself, And Be Not Daunted By Things...the Light By Which We See This World Comes Out From The Soul Of The Observer.

Men Cease To Interest Us When We Find Their Limitations. The Only Sin Is Limitation. As Soon As You Once Come Up With A Man's Limitations, It Is All Over With Him.

A Right Rule For A Club Would Be, Admit No Man Whose Presence Excludes Any One Topic. It Requires People Who Are Not Surprised Andshocked, Who Do And Let Do, And Let Be, Who Sink Trifles, And Know Solid Values, And Who Take A Great Deal For Granted.

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

Nothing Is More Simple Than Greatness; Indeed, To Be Simple Is To Be Great.

I Will Not Hide My Tastes Or Aversions. I Will So Trust That What Is Deep Is Holy, That I Will Do Strongly Before The Sun And Moon Whatever Only Rejoices Me, And The Heart Appoints

Do You See That Kitten Chasing So Prettily Her Own Tail? If You Could Look With Her Eyes, You Might See Her Surrounded With Hundreds Of Figures Performing Complex Dramas, With Tragic And Comic Issues, Long Conversations, Many Characters, Many Ups And Downs Of Fate.

The Society Of The Energetic Class, In Their Friendly And Festive Meetings, Is Full Of Courage, And Of Attempts, Which Intimidatethe Pale Scholar.

No Facts To Me Are Sacred; None Are Profane.

The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance.

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.

A Friend Is The Hope Of The Heart.

Power Is In Nature The Essential Measure Of Right.

All Successful Men Have Agreed In One Thing -- They Were Causationists. They Believed That Things Went Not By Luck, But By Law; That There Was Not A Weak Or A Cracked Link In The Chain That Joins The First And Last Of Things.

The Difference Between Talent And Genius Is That Talent Says Things Which He Has Never Heard But Once, And Genius Things Which He Has Never Heard.

An Eminent Teacher Of Girls Said, "the Idea Of A Girl's Education, Is, Whatever Qualifies Them For Going To Europe.

The Secret Of Success In Education Is Respecting The Students.

Secret To Success

What New Thoughts Are Suggested By Seeing A Face Of Country Quite Familiar, In The Rapid Movement Of The Rail-road Car!

Every Man's Reason Is Sufficient For His Guidance, If Used.

What You Are Shouts At Me So Loudly That I Can't Hear A Word You Say.

Cultivate An Attitude Of Gratitude, Of Giving And Forgiving. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

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.

The Virtue Of Art Lies In Detachment, In Sequestering One Object From The Embarrassing Variety. Until One Thing Comes Out From Theconnection Of Things, There Can Be Enjoyment, Contemplation, But No Thought.

Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today. Let Us Treat Men And Women Well; Treat Them As If They Were Real; Perhaps They Are.

Adopt The Pace Of Nature: Her Secret Is Patience.

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.

There Is Guidance For Each Of Us, And By Lowly Listening We Shall Hear The Right Word.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage. Whatever Course You Decide Upon, There Is Always Someone To Tell You That You Are Wrong. There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right. To Map Out A Course Of Action And Follow It To An End Requires Some Of The Same Courage That A Soldier Needs. Peace Has Its Victories, But It Takes Brave Men And Women To Win Them.

In Eloquence, The Great Triumphs Of The Art Are When The Orator Is Lifted Above Himself; When Consciously He Makes Himself The Mere Tongue Of The Occasion And The Hour, And Says What Cannot But Be Said. Hence The Term "abandonment" To Describe The Self- Surrender Of The Orator. Not His Will, But The Principle On Which He Is Horsed, The Great Connection And Crisis Of Events, Thunder In The Ear Of The Crowd.

From Washington, Proverbially "the City Of Distances," Through All Its Cities, States, And Territories, It Is A Country Of Beginnings, Of Projects, Of Designs, And Expectations.

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.

In This Distribution Of Functions, The Scholar Is The Delegated Intellect. In The Right State, He Is, Man Thinking. In The Degenerate State, When The Victim Of Society, He Tends To Become A Mere Thinker, Or, Still Worse, The Parrot Of Other Men's Thinking.

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.

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

Power Dwells With Cheerfulness.

Positive Attitude

The Transcendentalist Adopts The Whole Connection Of Spiritual Doctrine. He Believes In Miracle, In The Perpetual Openness Of Thehuman Mind To New Influx Of Light And Power; He Believes In Inspiration, And In Ecstacy.

Shall We Then Judge A Country By The Majority, Or By The Minority? By The Minority, Surely. 'tis Pedantry To Estimate Nations By The Census, Or By Square Miles Of Land, Or Other Than By Their Importance To The Mind Of The Time.

The Moment The Doctrine Of The Immortality Is Separately Taught, Man Is Already Fallen. In The Flowing Of Love, In The Adoration Of Humility, There Is No Question Of Continuance. No Inspired Man Ever Asks This Question, Or Condescends To These Evidences. For The Soul Is True To Itself, And The Man In Whom It Is Shed Abroad Cannot Wander From The Present, Which Is Infinite, To A Future Which Would Be Finite.

Society Never Advances. It Recedes As Fast On One Side As It Gains On The Other. Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

He That Writes To Himself Writes To An Eternal Public. That Statement Only Is Fit To Be Made Public, Which You Have Come At In Attempting To Satisfy Your Own Curiosity.

Some Natures Are Too Good To Be Spoiled By Praise.

One Idea Lights A Thousand Candles.

The Greatest Difficulty Is That Men Do Not Think Enough Of Themselves, Do Not Consider What It Is That They Are Sacrificing When They Follow In A Herd, Or When They Cater For Their Establishment.

A Beautiful Soul Always Dwells In A Beautiful World.

Bare Lists Of Words Are Found Suggestive To An Imaginative And Excited Mind.

Within, I Do Not Find Wrinkles And Used Heart, But Unspent Youth.

Happy The Man Who Never Puts On A Face, But Receives Every Visitor With That Countenance He Has On.

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things.

The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most.

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 Good Indignation Brings Out All One's Powers.

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.

The Pest Of Society Is Egotists.

There Are As Many Pillows Of Illusion As Flakes In A Snow-storm. We Wake From One Dream Into Another Dream.

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

With Each Divine Impulse The Mind Rends The Thin Rinds Of The Visible And Finite, And Comes Out Into Eternity, And Inspires And Expires Its Air. It Converses With Truths That Have Always Been Spoken In The World, And Becomes Conscious Of A Closer Sympathy With Zeno And Arrian, Than With Persons In The House.

It Is In The Stomach Of Plants That Development Begins, And Ends In The Circles Of The Universe. 'tis A Long Scale From The Gorilla To The Gentleman,--from The Gorilla To Plato, Newton, Shakespeare,--to The Sanctities Of Religion, The Refinements Of Legislation, The Summit Of Science, Art, And Poetry. The Beginnings Are Slow And Infirm, But It Is An Always Accelerated March.

Nothing Will Supply The Want Of Sunshine To Peaches, And, To Make Knowledge Valuable, You Must Have The Cheerfulness Of Wisdom. Whenever You Are Sincerely Pleased You Are Nourished. The Joy Of The Spirit Indicates Its Strength. All Healthy, Things Are Sweet-tempered. Genius Works In Sport, And Goodness Smiles To The Last.

Instead Of Feeling A Poverty When We Encounter A Great Man, Let Us Treat The New Comer Like A Travelling Geologist, Who Passes Through Our Estate, And Shows Us Good Slate, Or Limestone, Or Anthracite, In Our Brush Pasture.

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.

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.

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.

A Man Is The Prisoner Of His Power. A Topical Memory Makes Him An Almanac; A Talent For Debate, Disputant; Skill To Get Money Makes Him A Miser, That Is, A Beggar. Culture Reduces These Inflammations By Invoking The Aid Of Other Powers Against The Dominant Talent, And By Appealing To The Rank Of Powers. It Watches Success.

Insist Upon Yourself. Be Original.

Funny Basketball

Nothing Is At Last Sacred But The Integrity Of Your Own Mind.

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.

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

Nature Tells Every Secret Once.

The World Leaves No Track In Space, And The Greatest Action Of Man No Mark In The Vast Idea.

If You Want To Be Great And Successful, Choose People Who Are Great And Successful And Walk Side By Side With Them.

But Every Jet Of Chaos Which Threatens To Exterminate Us Is Convertible By Intellect Into Wholesome Force. Fate Is Unpenetrated Causes.

Man Moves In All Modes, By Legs Of Horses, By Wings Of Winds, By Steam, By Gas Of Balloon, By Electricity, And Stands On Tiptoe Threatening To Hunt The Eagle In His Own Element.

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.

The Religion That Is Afraid Of Science Dishonors God And Commits Suicide.

We Grant No Dukedoms To The Few, We Hold Like Rights And Shall; Equal On Sunday In The Pew, On Monday In The Mall. For What Avail The Plough Or Sail, Or Land, Or Life, If Freedom Fail?

Every Person Has His Or Her Own Vocation-talent Is The Call.

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

The Maxim Of Courts Is That Manner Is Power.

The Mass Of Men Worry Themselves Into Nameless Graves While Here And There A Great Unselfish Soul Forgets Himself Into Immortality.

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.

Keep Cool: It Will Be All One A Hundred Years Hence.

Neither Is A Dictionary A Bad Book To Read. There Is No Can't In It, No Excess Of Explanation, And It Is Full Of Suggestion, The Raw Material Of Possible Poems And Histories.

Of Course, He Who Has Put Forth His Total Strength In Fit Actions, Has The Richest Return Of Wisdom.

Who Shall Forbid A Wise Skepticism, Seeing That There Is No Practical Question On Which Anything More Than An Approximate Solution Can Be Had?

Pride Ruined The Angels.

Nature Arms Each Man With Some Faculty Which Enables Him To Do Easily Some Feat Impossible To Any Other.

A Mob Cannot Be A Permanency: Everybody's Interest Requires That It Should Not Exist, And Only Justice Satisfies All.

If A Man Fasten His Attention On A Single Aspect Of Truth And Apply Himself To That Alone For A Long Time, The Truth Becomes Distorted And Not Itself But Falsehood.

Old Age Brings Along With Its Uglinesses The Comfort That You Will Soon Be Out Of It, - Which Ought To Be A Substantial Relief To Such Discontented Pendulums As We Are.

No Member Of A Crew Is Praised For The Rugged Individuality Of His Rowing.

Outside Among Your Fellows, Among Strangers, You Must Preserve Appearances, A Hundred Things You Cannot Do; But Inside, The Terrible Freedom.

Let Us Replace Sentimentalism By Realism And Dare To Uncover Those Simple And Terrible Laws Which, Be They Seen Or Unseen, Pervade And Govern.

Our Reliance On The Physician Is A Kind Of Despair Of Ourselves.

We Grizzle Every Day. I See No Need Of It. Whilst We Converse With What Is Above Us, We Do Not Grow Old, But Grow Young.

The Child Realizes To Every Man His Own Earliest Remembrance, And So Supplies A Defect In Our Education, Or Enables Us To Live Over The Unconscious History With A Sympathy So Tender As To Be Almost Personal Experience.

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.

It Is, In Both Cases, That A Spiritual Life Has Been Imparted To Nature; That The Solid Seeming Block Of Matter Has Been Pervadedand Dissolved By A Thought; That This Feeble Human Being Has Penetrated The Vast Masses Of Nature With An Informing Soul, And Recognised Itself In Their Harmony, That Is, Seized Their Law. In Physics, When This Is Attained, The Memory Disburthens Itself Of Its Cumbrous Catalogues Of Particulars, And Carries Centuries Of Observation In A Single Formula.

A Great Mind Is A Good Sailor, As A Great Heart Is.

I Have No Hostility To Nature, But A Child's Love To It. I Expand And Live In The Warm Day Like Corn And Melons.

Women, More Than All, Are The Element And Kingdom Of Illusion. Being Fascinated, They Fascinate.

And Striving To Be Man, The Worm Mounts Through All The Spires Of Form.

Our Expense Is Almost All For Conformity. It Is For Cake That We Run In Debt; 'tis Not The Intellect, Not The Heart, Not Beauty, Not Worship, That Costs So Much.

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.

Our Friends Early Appear To Us As Representatives Of Certain Ideas, Which They Never Pass Or Exceed. They Stand On The Brink Of The Ocean Of Thought And Power, But They Never Take A Single Step That Would Bring Them There.

Strange Is This Alien Despotism Of Sleep Which Takes Two Persons Lying In Each Other's Arms & Separates Them Leagues, Continents,asunder.

Whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist.

Being Different

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

Our Culture, Therefore, Must Not Omit The Arming Of The Man. Let Him Hear In Season, That He Is Born Into The State Of War, And That The Commonwealth And His Own Well-being Require That He Should Not Go Dancing In The Weeds Of Peace, But Warned, Self- Collected, And Neither Defying Nor Dreading The Thunder, Let Him Take Both Reputation And Life In His Hand, And, With Perfect Urbanity, Dare The Gibbet And The Mob By The Absolute Truth Of His Speech, And The Rectitude Of His Behaviour.

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

Nature Paints The Best Part Of A Picture, Carves The Best Parts Of The Statue, Builds The Best Part Of The House, And Speaks The Best Part Of The Oration.

You May Regret Calamities If You Can Thereby Help The Sufferer, But If You Cannot, Mind Your Own Business.

Mind Your Own Business

The Only Thing Grief Has Taught Me Is To Know How Shallow It Is.

Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends. We're So Glad You Could Attend, Come Inside, Come Inside.

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

We Can See Well Into The Past; We Can Guess Shrewdly Into The Future, But That Which Is Rolled Up And Muffled In Impenetrable Folds Is Today.

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.

The Value Of A Principle Is The Number Of Things It Will Explain.

Every Sweet Has Its Sour; Every Evil Its Good.

The Motive Of Science Was The Extension Of Man, On All Sides, Into Nature, Till His Hands Should Touch The Stars, His Eyes See Through The Earth, His Ears Understand The Language Of Beast And Bird, And The Sense Of The Wind; And, Through His Sympathy, Heaven And Earth Should Talk With Him. But That Is Not Our Science.

It Makes A Great Difference In The Force Of A Sentence, Whether A Man Be Behind It Or No.

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

Self Esteem::"it Is Very Easy In The World To Live By The Opinion Of The World. It Is Very Easy In Solitude To Be Self-centered. But The Finished Man Is He Who In The Midst Of The Crowd Keeps With Perfect Sweetness The Independence Of Solitude. I Knew A Man Of Simple Habits And Earnest Character Who Never Put Out His Hands Nor Opened His Lips To Court The Public, And Having Survived Several Rotten Reputations Of Younger Men, Honor Came At Last And Sat Down With Him Upon His Private Bench From Which He Had Never Stirred."

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.

No Picture Of Life Can Have Any Veracity That Does Not Admit The Odious Facts. A Man's Power Is Hooped In By A Necessity, Which, By Many Experiments, He Touches On Every Side, Until He Learns Its Arc.

Lawyers Are A Prudent Race Though Not Very Fond Of Liberty.

I Have No Expectation That Any Man Will Read History Aright Who Thinks That What Was Done In A Remote Age, By Men Whose Names Have Resounded Far, Has Any Deeper Sense Than What He Is Doing Today.

All Forms Of Government Symbolize An Immortal Government, Common To All Dynasties And Independent Of Numbers, Perfect Where Two Men Exist, Perfect Where There Is Only One Man.

A Person Seldom Falls Sick But The Bystanders Are Animated With A Faint Hope That He Will Die.

The God Or Hero Of The Sculptor Is Always Represented In A Transition From That Which Is Representable To The Senses, To That Which Is Not.

The Richest Of All Lords Is Use, And Ruddy Health The Loftiest Muse. Live In The Sunshine, Swim The Sea, Drink The Wild Air's Salubrity.

It Is The Doctrine Of The Popular Music-masters, That Whoever Can Speak Can Sing. So, Probably, Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life. Our Temperaments Differ In Capacity Of Heat, Or

As Arkwright And Whitney Were The Demi-gods Of Cotton, So Prolific Time Will Yet Bring An Inventor To Every Plant. There Is Not A Property In Nature But A Mind Is Born To Seek And Find 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.

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

A Man Should Give Us A Sense Of Mass.

Pay No Heed To The Average Photographer's Remarks Upon "flat" And "weak" Negatives. Probably He Is Flat, Weak, Stale, And Unprofitable; Your Negative May Be First-rate, And Probably Is If He Does Not Approve Of It.

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

The People Know That They Need In Their Representative Much More Than Talent, Namely, The Power To Make His Talent Trusted.

So In Accepting The Leading Of The Sentiments, It Is Not What We Believe Concerning The Immortality Of The Soul, Or The Like, But The Universal Impulse To Believe, That Is The Material Circumstance, And Is The Principal Fact In This History Of The Globe.

Open The Doors Of Opportunity To Talent And Virtue And They Will Do Themselves Justice, And Property Will Not Be In Bad Hands.

It Is One Of The Biggest Blessing That You Can Be Stupid With Your True Friends And Behave Like You Shame To Do Elsewhere

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

Law Of Contrariness: Our Chief Want In Life Is Somebody Who Shall Make Us Do What We Can. Having Found Them, We Shall Then Hate Them For It.

Raphael Paints Wisdom, Handel Sings It, Phidias Carves It, Shakespeare Writes It, Wren Builds It, Columbus Sails It, Luther Preaches It, Washington Arms It, Watt Mechanizes It.

A Bullet Had Found Him, His Blood Ran Out As He Cried. No Money Could Save Him, So He Laid Down And Died. Ooh, What A Lucky Man He Was.

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

Every Roof Is Agreeable To The Eye, Until It Is Lifted; Then We Find Tragedy And Moaning Women, And Hard-eyed Husbands.

A Good Symbol Is The Best Argument, And Is A Missionary To Persuade Thousands.

A More Secret, Sweet, And Overpowering Beauty Appears To Man When His Heart And Mind Open To The Sentiment Of Virtue. Then He Is Instructed In What Is Set Above Him. He Learns That His Being Is Without Bound; That To The Good, To The Perfect, He Is Born, Low As He Now Lies In Evil And Weakness.

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. Within These Plantations Of God A Decorum And Sanctity Reign, A Perennial Festival Is Dressed, And The Guest Sees Not How He Should Tire Of Them In A Thousand Years. In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

I Find The Englishman To Be Him Of All Men Who Stands Firmest In His Shoes. They Have In Themselves What They Value In Their Horses, Mettle And Bottom.

A Weed Is A Plant We've Found No Use For Yet.

Our Relations To Each Other Are Oblique And Casual.

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