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What We Commonly Call Man, The Eating, Drinking, Planting, Counting Man, Does Not, As We Know Him, Represent Himself, But Misrepresents Himself. Him We Do Not Respect, But The Soul, Whose Organ He Is, Would He Let It Appear Through His Action, Would Make Our Knees Bend.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What We Commonly Call

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What We Commonly Call Man, The Eating, Drinking, Planting, Counting Man, Does Not, As We Know Him, Represent Himself, But Misrepresents Himself. Him We Do Not Respect, But The Soul, Whose Organ He Is, Would He Let It Appear Through His Action, Would Make Our Knees Bend.

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Envy Is The Tax Which All Distinction Must Pay.

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

Every Great Achievement Is The Victory Of A Flaming Heart.

Thought Is The Seed Of Action; But Action Is As Much Its Second Form As Thought Is Its First. It Rises In Thought, To The End That It May Be Uttered And Acted. Always In Proportion To The Depth Of Its Sense Does It Knock Importunately At The Gates Of The Soul, To Be Spoken, To Be Done.

The State Of Society Is One In Which The Members Have Suffered Amputation From The Trunk, And Strut About So Many Walking Monsters,—a Good Finger, A Neck, A Stomach, An Elbow, But Never A Man.

The Eyes Of Men Converse As Much As Their Tongues.

But Wise Men Pierce This Rotten Diction And Fasten Words Again To Visible Things; So That Picturesque Language Is At Once A Commanding Certificate That He Who Employs It, Is A Man In Alliance With Truth And God.

We Do What We Must, And Call It By The Best Names We Can, And Would Fain Have The Praise Of Having Intended The Result Which Ensues.

For, Rightly, Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth, And, Whilst I Fancied I Was Criticising Him, I Was Censuring Orrather Terminating My Own Soul.

Nature Cannot Be Surprised In Undress. Beauty Breaks In Everywhere.

Deal In Our Privacy With The Last Honesty And Truth.

Is All Literature Eavesdropping, And All Art Chinese Imitation? Our Life A Custom, And Our Body Borrowed, Like A Beggar’s Dinner, From A Hundred Charities?

Be An Opener Of Doors For Such As Come After Thee.

Nature Tells Every Secret Once.

For Flowers That Bloom About Our Feet; For Tender Grass, So Fresh, So Sweet; For Song Of Bird, And Hum Of Bee; For All Things Fair We Hear Or See, Father In Heaven, We Thank Thee!

I Am Old, Yet I Look At Wise Men And See That I Am Very Young. I Look Over Those Stars Yonder, And Into The Myriads Of The Aspirant And Ordered Souls, And See I Am A Stranger And A Youth And Have Yet My Spurs To Win. Too Ridiculous Are These Airs Of Age.

Universally, The Better Gold The Worse Man. The Political Economist Defies Us To Show Any Gold Mine Country That Is Traversed By Good Roads, Or A Shore Where Pearls Are Found On Which Good Schools Are Erected.

The Reward Of Commercial Civilization Is The Ability To Consume A Never-ending Array Of Products.there Are Limits Beyond Which Commodities Cannot Be Multiplied Without Preventing Their Consumers From Affirming Themselves Through The Exercise Of Their Personal Freedom.when Market Dependence Reaches A Certain Threshold It Deprives People Of Their Power To Live Creatively And To Act Autonomously. And Precisely Because This New Impotence Is So Deeply Experienced, It Is Expressed With Difficulty.

Governments Have Their Origin In The Moral Identity Of Men.

Truth Gathers Itself Spotless And Unhurt After All Our Surrenders And Concealments And Partisanship; Never Hurt By The Treachery Or Ruin Of Its Best Defenders, Whether Luther, Or William Penn, Or St. Paul.

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.

Religion Must Always Be A Crab Fruit; It Cannot Be Grafted, And Keep Its Wild Beauty.

Every Man Is A Divinity In Disguise, A God Playing The Fool.

What Is A Weed? A Plant Whose Virtues Have Never Been Discovered.

O Friend, Never Strike Sail To A Fear!

The Mind Is A Finer Body, And Resumes Its Functions Of Feeding, Digesting, Absorbing, Excluding, And Generating, In A New And Ethereal Element. Here, In The Brain, Is All The Process Of Alimentation Repeated, In The Acquiring, Comparing, Digesting, And Assimilating Of Experience. Here Again Is The Mystery Of Generation Repeated.

Every Advantage Has Its Tax.

Every Friend Whom Not Thy Fantastic Will But The Great And Tender Heart In Thee Craveth, Shall Lock Thee In His Embrace. And This Because The Heart In Thee Is The Heart Of All; Not A Valve, Not A Wall, Not An Intersection Is There Anywhere In Nature, But One Blood Rolls Uninterruptedly In Endless Circulation Through All Men, As The Water Of The Globe Is All One Sea, And, Truly Seen, Its Tide Is One.

All Necessary Truth Is Its Own Evidence.

There Is No Man Of Nature's Worth In The Circle Of The Earth.

When I First Open My Eyes Upon The Morning Meadows And Look Out Upon The Beautiful World, I Thank God I Am Alive.

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

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things; Each One A Stroke Of Genius Or Of Love, Now Repeated And Hardened Into Usage, They Form At Last A Rich Varnish, With Which The Routine Of Life Is Washed, And Its Details Adorned. If They Are Superficial, So Are The Dew-drops Which Give Such A Depth To The Morning Meadows.

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

The Secret Of Ugliness Consists Not In Irregularity, But In Being Uninteresting.

Funny Relationship

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies.

I Like To Have A Person's Knowledge Comprehend More Than One Class Of Topics, One Row Of Shelves. I Like A Person Who Likes To See A Fine Barn As Well As A Good Tragedy.

The Gift, To Be True, Must Be The Flowing Of The Giver Unto Me, Correspondent To My Flowing Unto Him.

For Nonconformity The World Will Whip You With Its Displeasure.

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

No Man Should Travel Until He Has Learned The Language Of The Country He Visits. Otherwise He Voluntarily Makes Himself A Great Baby - So Helpless And So Ridiculous.

Walking Has The Best Value As Gymnastics Of The Mind.

So All That Is Said Of The Wise Man By Stoic Or Oriental Or Modern Essayist, Describes To Each Reader His Own Idea, Describes His Unattained But Attainable Self.

You Cannot Give Anything To A Magnanimous Person. After You Have Served Him, He At Once Puts You In Debt By His Magnanimity.

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

Science Does Not Know Its Debt To Imagination.

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

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year. He Is Rich Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded With Fret And Anxiety. Finish Every Day And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could. Some Blunders And Absurdities, No Doubt Crept In. Forget Them As Soon As You Can, Tomorrow Is A New Day; Begin It Well And Serenely, With Too High A Spirit To Be Cumbered With Your Old Nonsense. This New Day Is Too Dear, With Its Hopes And Invitations, To Waste A Moment On The Yesterdays.

Gold And Iron Are Good To Buy Iron And Gold.

Manners Make The Fortune Of The Ambitious Youth.

What's A Book? Everything Or Nothing. The Eye That Sees It All.

Proportion Is Almost Impossible To Human Beings. There Is No One Who Does Not Exaggerate.

Could Shakespeare Give A Theory Of Shakespeare?

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.

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

A Weed Is A Plant Whose Virtue Is Not Yet Known.

To Have Played And Laughed With Enthusiasm, And Sung With Exultation - This To To Have Succeeded.

God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards

The Poet Knows That He Speaks Adequately, Then, Only When He Speaks Somewhat Wildly.

The Shoemaker Makes A Good Shoe Because He Makes Nothing Else.

Every Thought Which Genius And Piety Throw Into The World Alters The World.

A Man's Fortunes Are The Fruit Of His Character. A Man's Friends Are His Magnetisms.

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

Let The Man Stand On His Feet. Let Religion Cease To Be Occasional; And The Pulses Of Thought That Go To The Borders Of The Universe, Let Them Proceed From The Bosom Of The Household.

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

Meantime The Education Of The General Mind Never Stops. The Reveries Of The True And Simple Are Prophetic. What The Tender Poeticyouth Dreams, And Prays, And Paints Today, But Shuns The Ridicule Of Saying Aloud, Shall Presently Be The Resolutions Of Public Bodies, Then Shall Be Carried As Grievance And Bill Of Rights Through Conflict And War, And Then Shall Be Triumphant Law And Establishment For A Hundred Years, Until It Gives Place, In Turn, To New Prayers And Pictures.

A Man Cannot Free Himself By Any Self-denying Ordinances, Neither By Water Nor Potatoes, Nor By Violent Possibilities, By Refusing To Swear, Refusing To Pay Taxes, By Going To Jail, Or By Taking Another Man's Crops Or Squatting On His Land. By None Of These Ways Can He Free Himself; No, Nor By Paying His Debts With Money; Only By Obedience To His Own Genius.

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.

Man Is The Will, And Woman The Sentiment. In This Ship Of Humanity, Will Is The Rudder, And Sentiment The Sail; When Woman Affects To Steer, The Rudder Is Only A Masked Sail.

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

Christian Inspirational

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.

The Purpose Of Life Seems To Be To Acquaint A Man With Himself And Whatever Science Or Art Or Course Of Action He Engages In Reacts Upon And Illuminates The Recesses Of His Own Mind. Thus Friends Seem To Be Only Mirrors To Draw Out And Explain To Us Ourselves; And That Which Draws Us Nearer Our Fellow Man, Is, That The Deep Heart In One, Answers The Deep Heart In Another, - That We Find We Have (a Common Nature) - One Life Which Runs Through All Individuals, And Which Is Indeed Divine.

Observe How Every Truth And Every Error, Each A Thought Of Someone's Mind, Clothes Itself With Societies, Houses, Cities, Language, Ceremonies, Newspapers

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.

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.

For The Resolute And Determined, There Is Time And Opportunity.

The Attraction And Superiority Of California Are In Its Days. It Has Better Days & More Of Them, Than Any Other Country.

A Man Is A God In Ruins.

Providence Has A Wild, Rough, Incalculable Road To Its End, And It Is Of No Use To Try To Whitewash Its Huge, Mixed Instrumentalities, Or To Dress Up That Terrific Benefactor In A Clean Shirt And White Neckcloth Of A Student In Divinity.

Let Ideas Establish Their Legitimate Sway Again In Society, Let Life Be Fair And Poetic, And The Scholars Will Gladly Be Lovers, Citizens, And Philanthropists.

Go, Speed The Stars Of Thought On To Their Shining Goals; - The Sower Scatters Broad His Seed, The Wheat Thou Strew'st Be Souls.

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.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

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.

Since Everything In Nature Answers To A Moral Power, If Any Phenomenon Remains Brute And Dark, It Is That The Corresponding Faculty In The Observer Is Not Yet Active.

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

Good As Is Discourse, Silence Is Better And Shames It.

Thought Is The Seed Of Action; But Action Is As Much Its Second Form As Thought Is Its First.

People Who Know How To Act Are Never Preachers.

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.

The Religion Of England Is Part Of Good-breeding. When You See On The Continent The Well-dressed Englishman Come Into His Ambassador's Chapel And Put His Face For Silent Prayer Into His Smooth-brushed Hat, You Cannot Help Feeling How Much National Pride Prays With Him, And The Religion Of A Gentleman.

No Matter How You Seem To Fatten On A Crime, There Can Never Be Good For The Bee Which Is Bad For The Hive.

We Do Not Quite Forgive A Giver. The Hand That Feeds Us Is In Some Danger Of Being Bitten.

The Genius Of Reading And Of Gardening Are Antagonistic, Like Resinous And Vitreous Electricity. One Is Concentrative In Sparks And Shocks: The Other Is Diffuse Strength; So That Each Disqualifies Its Workman For The Other's Duties.

He Who Should Inspire And Lead His Race Must Be Defended From Travelling With The Souls Of Other Men, From Living, Breathing, Reading, And Writing In The Daily, Time-worn Yoke Of Their Opinions.

Let No One Honour Me With Tears, Or Bury Me With Lamentation. Why? Because I Fly Hither And Thither, Living In The Mouths Of Me.

What Matters Most Is Not What Is Behind Us Or Before Us, But What Is Within Us.

If We Meet No Gods, It Is Because We Harbor None.

Be Yourself; No Base Imitator Of Another, But Your Best Self. There Is Something Which You Can Do Better Than Another. Listen To The Inward Voice And Bravely Obey That. Do The Things At Which You Are Great, Not What You Were Never Made For.

I Think All Men Know Better Than They Do; Know That The Institutions We So Volubly Commend Are Go-carts And Baubles; But They Darenot Trust Their Presentiments.

In The Matter Of Religion, People Eagerly Fasten Their Eyes On The Difference Between Their Own Creed And Yours; Whilst The Charm Of The Study Is In Finding The Agreements And Identities In All The Religions Of Humanity.

The Eye Obeys Exactly The Action Of The Mind.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy.

Great Believers Are Always Reckoned Infidels, Impracticable, Fantastic, Atheistic, And Really Men Of No Account. The Spiritualist Finds Himself Driven To Express His Faith By A Series Of Skepticisms.

The Beautiful Rests On The Foundations Of The Necessary.

To Aim To Convert A Man By Miracles Is A Profanation Of The Soul. A True Conversion, A True Christ, Is Now, As Always, To Be Madeby The Reception Of Beautiful Sentiments.

Daughter Of Time, The Hypocrite Days, Muffled And Dumb Like Barefoot Dervishes, And Marching Single In An Endless File, Bring Diadems And Fagots In Their Hands; To Each They Offer Gifts After His Will, Bread, Kingdom, Stars, And Sky That Holds Them All; I, In My Pleached Garden Watched The Pomp Forgot My Morning Wishes, Hastily Took A Few Herbs And Apples, And The Day Turned And Departed Silent. I Too Late Under Her Solemn Fillet Saw The Scorn.

Ever Fresh The Broad Creation, A Divine Improvisation, From The Heart Of God Proceeds, A Single Will, A Million Deeds.

When The Vain Speaker Has Sat Down, And The People Say 'what A Good Speech,' It Still Takes An Ounce To Balance An Ounce.

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

For Each New Morning With Its Light, For Rest And Shelter Of The Night, For Health And Food, For Love And Friends, For Everything Thy Goodness Sends.

Culture Is The Suggestion, From Certain Best Thoughts, That A Man Has A Range Of Affinities Through Which He Can Modulate The Violence Of Any Master-tones That Have A Droning Preponderance In His Scale, And Succor Him Against Himself. Culture Redresses This Imbalance, Puts Him Among Equals And Superiors, Revives The Delicious Sense Of Sympathy, And Warns Him Of The Dangers Of Solitude And Repulsion.

It Seems As If Nature, In Regarding The Geologic Night Behind Her, When, In Five Or Six Millenniums, She Had Turned Out Five Or Six Men, As Homer, Phidias, Menu, And Columbus, Was No Wise Discontented With The Result. These Samples Attested The Virtue Of The Tree.

The True Ship Is The Ship Builder.

The Invariable Mark Of Wisdom Is To See The Miraculous In The Common.

There Will Always Be In Society Certain Persons Who Are Mercuries Of Its Approbation, And Whose Glance Will At Any Time Determinefor The Curious Their Standing In The World. These Are The Chamberlains Of The Lesser Gods. Accept Their Coldness As An Omen Of Grace With The Loftier Deities, And Allow Them All Their Privilege.

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

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

Life Is A Boundless Privilege, And When You Pay For Your Ticket, And Get Into The Car, You Have No Guess What Good Company You Shall Find There.

Of The Shaker Society, It Was Formerly A Sort Of Proverb In The Country, That They Always Sent The Devil To Market.

On Bravely Through The Sunshine And The Showers! Time Hath His Work To Do, And We Have Ours.

The Thing Done Avails, And Not What Is Said About It.

All Things Are Known To The Soul.

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!

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

The Field Cannot Be Well Seen From Within The Field. The Astronomer Must Have His Diameter Of The Earth's Orbit As A Base To Fix The Parallax Of Any Other Star

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.

I Think We Must Get Rid Of Slavery Or We Must Get Rid Of Freedom.

It Is The Quality Of The Moment, Not The Number Of Days, Or Events, Or Of Actors, That Imports.

If Your Friend Has Displeased You, You Shall Not Sit Down To Consider It, For He Has Already Lost All Memory Of The Passage, And Has Doubled His Power To Serve You, And, Ere You Can Rise Up Again, Will Burden You With Blessings.

...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.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose ... We Distinguish The Announcements Of The Soul, Its Manifestations Of Its Own Nature, By The Term Revelation. These Are Always Attended By The Emotion Of The Sublime. For This Communication Is An Influx Of The Divine Mind Into Our Mind. It Is An Ebb Of The Individual Rivulet Before The Flowing Surges Of The Sea Of Life. Every Distinct Apprehension Of This Central Commandment Agitates Men With Awe And Delight.

The Solar System Has No Anxiety About Its Reputation, And The Credit Of Truth And Honesty Is As Safe; Nor Have I Any Fear That A Skeptical Bias Can Be Given By Leaning Hard On The Sides Of Fate, Of Practical Power, Or Of Trade, Which The Doctrine Of Faith Cannot Down-weigh.

All Things Are Moral; And In Their Boundless Changes Have An Unceasing Reference To Spiritual Nature.

Speak The Affirmative; Emphasize Your Choice By Utter Ignoring Of All That You Reject.

All Science Is Transcendental Or Else Passes Away.

Every Moment Instructs, And Every Object; For Wisdom Is Infused Into Every Form. It Has Been Poured Into Us As Blood; It Convulsed Us As Pain; It Slid Into Us As Pleasure; It Enveloped Us In Dull, Melancholy Days, Or In Days Of Cheerful Labor; We Did Not Guess Its Essence Until After Long Time.

Wisdom Is Like Electricity. There Is No Permanently Wise Man, But Men Capable Of Wisdom, Who, Being Put Into Certain Company, Or Other Favorable Conditions, Become Wise For A Short Time, As Glasses Rubbed Acquire Electric Power For A While.

To Be A Man Is To Be A Nonconformist.

What I Must Do Is All That Concerns Me, Not What People Think. This Rule,equally Arduous In Actual And Intellectual Life, May Serve For The Whole Distinction Between Greatness And Meanness. It Is The Harder, Because You Will Always Find Those Who Think They Know What Is Your Duty Better Than You Know It. It Is Easy In The World To Live After The World's Opinion; It Is Easy In Solitude To Live After Our Own; But The Great Man Is He Who In The Midst Of The Crowd Keeps With Perfect Sweetness The Independence Of Solitude.

Light Is The First Of Painters. There Is No Object So Foul That Intense Light Will Not Make It Beautiful.

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

Nature Is A Language And Every New Fact One Learns Is A New Word; But It Is Not A Language Taken To Pieces And Dead In The Dictionary, But The Language Put Together Into A Most Significant And Universal Sense. I Wish To Learn This Language - Not That I May Know A New Grammar, But That I May Read The Great Book Which Is Written In That Tongue.

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

Man Is Timid And Apologetic; He Is No Longer Upright; He Dares Not Say "i Think," "i Am," But Quotes Some Saint Or Sage.

We Sometimes Observe That Spoiled Children Contract A Habit Of Annoying Quite Wantonly Those Who Have Charge Of Them, And Seem Tomeasure Their Own Sense Of Well-being, Not By What They Do, But By The Degree Of Reaction They Can Cause. It Is Vain To Get Rid Of Them By Not Minding Them: If Purring And Humming Is Not Noticed, They Squeal And Screech; Then If You Chide And Console Them, They Find The Experiment Succeeds, And They Begin Again. The Child Will Sit In Your Arms Contented If You Do Nothing. If You Take A Book And Read, He Commences Hostile Operations.

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

Would We Codify The Laws That Should Reign In Households, And Whose Daily Transgression Annoys And Mortifies Us, And Degrades Our Household Life, We Must Adorn Every Day With Sacrifices. Good Manners Are Made Up Of Petty Sacrifices.

When Some External Event Raises Your Spirits And You Think Good Days Are Preparing For You, Do Not Believe It. It Can Never Be So. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

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.

The Influence Of Fine Scenery, The Presence Of Mountains, Appeases Our Irritations And Elevates Our Friendships.

The Objection To Conforming To Usages That Have Become Dead To You Is, That It Scatters Your Force.

The Dead Sleep In Their Moonless Night; My Business Is With The Living.

I Cannot Remember The Books I've Read Any More Than The Meals I Have Eaten; Even So, They Have Made Me.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage.

Between Cultivated Minds The First Interview Is The Best.

A Friend Is A Person Who Goes Around Saying Nice Things About You Behind Your Back.

Cute Friendship

Behind Your Back

He Decided To Give Up His Large Ambition Of Knowledge And Action For Any Narrow Craft Or Profession, Aiming At A Much More Comprehensive Calling, The Art Of Living.

It Is Bad Enough That Our Geniuses Cannot Do Anything Useful, But It Is Worse That No Man Is Fit For Society Who Has Fine Traits.he Is Admired At A Distance, But He Cannot Come Near Without Appearing A Cripple.

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

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.

There Are No Fixtures In Nature. The Universe Is Fluid And Volatile. Permanence Is But A Word Of Degrees.

Our Statute Is A Currency Which We Stamp With Our Own Portrait.

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year. No Man Has Learned Anything Rightly, Until He Knows That Every Day Is Doomsday.

Inspirational Life

A Low Self-love In The Parent Desires That His Child Should Repeat His Character And Fortune.

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity. All Men, All Things, The State, The Church, Yea The Friends Of The Heart Are Phantasms And Unreal Beside The Sanctuary Of The Heart. With So Much Awe, With So Much Fear, Let It Be Respected.

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.

The Customer Is The Immediate Jewel Of Our Souls. Him We Flatter, Him We Feast, Compliment, Vote For, And Will Not Contradict.

A Foolish Consistency Is The Hobgoblin Of Little Minds, Adored By Little Statesmen And Philosophers And Divines. With Consistency A Great Soul Has Simply Nothing To Do. He May As Well Concern Himself With His Shadow On The Wall. Speak What You Think Now In Hard Words And To-morrow Speak What To-morrow Thinks In Hard Words Again, Though It Contradict Every Thing You Said To-day.

Every Rational Creature Has All Nature For His Dowry And Estate. It Is His, If He Will. He May Divest Himself Of It; He May Creepinto A Corner, And Abdicate His Kingdom, As Most Men Do, But He Is Entitled To The World By His Constitution.

Man Is A Stream Whose Source Is Hidden. Our Being Is Descending Into Us From We Know Not Whence.

Vigor Is Contagious, And Whatever Makes Us Either Think Or Feel Strongly Adds To Our Power And Enlarges Our Field Of Action.

It Seems To Be A Rule Of Wisdom Never To Rely On Memory Alone.

What Is A Weed? A Plant Whose Virtues Have Not Yet Been Discovered.[what Is A Sorrow? A Feeling Whose Benefits Have Not Yet Been Discovered]

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 Hues Of The Opal, The Light Of The Diamond, Are Not To Be Seen If The Eye Is Too Near.

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

Every Man Has His Own Courage, And Is Betrayed Because He Seeks In Himself The Courage Of Other Persons.

Every Great Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of A Single Man. His Character Determines The Character Of The Organization.

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

For, Whom The Muses Smile Upon, And Touch With Soft Persuasion, His Words Like A Storm-wind Can Bring Terror And Beauty On Their Wing; In His Every Syllable Lurketh Nature Veritable.

All Persons Are Puzzles Until At Last We Find In Some Word Or Act The Key To The Man, To The Woman; Straightway All Their Past Words And Actions Lie In Light Before Us.

I Grieve That Grief Can Teach Me Nothing, Nor Carry Me One Step Into Real Nature.

God Builds His Temple In The Heart On The Ruins Of Churches And Religions.

Among The Multitude Of Scholars And Authors, We Feel No Hallowing Presence; We Are Sensible Of A Knack And Skill Rather Than Of Inspiration; They Have A Light, And Know Not Whence It Comes, And Call It Their Own; Their Talent Is Some Exaggerated Faculty, Some Overgrown Member, So That Their Strength Is A Disease.

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.

The Statue Is Then Beautiful When It Begins To Be Incomprehensible, When It Is Passing Out Of Criticism, And Can No Longer Be Defined By Compass And Measuring-wand, But Demands An Active Imagination To Go With It, And To Say What It Is In The Act Of Doing.

The Church Seems To Totter To Its Fall, Almost All Life Extinct. On This Occasion, Any Complaisance Would Be Criminal Which Told You, Whose Hope And Commission It Is To Preach The Faith Of Christ, That The Faith Of Christ Is Preached.

The Affirmative Of Affirmatives... Is Love.

Add Energy, Inspire Hope, And Blow The Coals Into A Useful Flame.

I Am Become A Transparent Eyeball.

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

In The Vaunted Works Of Art, The Master-stroke Is Nature's Part.

If There Is Any Period One Would Desire To Be Born In, Is It Not The Age Of Revolution; When The Old And The New Stand Side By Side, And Admit Of Being Compared; When The Energies Of All Men Are Searched By Fear And By Hope; When The Historic Glories Of The Old Can Be Compensated By The Rich Possibilities Of The New Era?

Valor Consists In The Power Of Self-recovery, So That A Man Cannot Have His Flank Turned, Cannot Be Out-generalled, But Put Him Where You Will, He Stands.

Many A Profound Genius, I Suppose, Who Fills The World With Fame Of His Exploding Renowned Errors, Is Yet Everyday Posed And Baffled By Trivial Questions At His Own Supper Table.

Trust Men And They Will Be True To You; Treat Them Greatly And They Will Show Themselves Great.

The Laws Of Light And Of Heat Translate Each Other;-so Do The Laws Of Sound And Colour; And So Galvanism, Electricity And Magnetism Are Varied Forms Of This Selfsame Energy.

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.

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise.

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Laurell K. Hamilton

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