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When We Are Young, We Spend Much Time And Pains In Filling Our Note-books With All Definitions Of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, In The Hope That, In The Course Of A Few Years, We Shall Have Condensed Into Our Encyclopaedia The Net Value Of All The Theories At Which The World Has Yet Arrived. But Year After Year Our Tables Get No Completeness, And At Last We Discover That Our Curve Is A Parabola, Whose Arcs Will Never Meet.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When We Are Young,

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When We Are Young, We Spend Much Time And Pains In Filling Our Note-books With All Definitions Of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, In The Hope That, In The Course Of A Few Years, We Shall Have Condensed Into Our Encyclopaedia The Net Value Of All The Theories At Which The World Has Yet Arrived. But Year After Year Our Tables Get No Completeness, And At Last We Discover That Our Curve Is A Parabola, Whose Arcs Will Never Meet.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

This Ennui, For Which We Saxons Had No Name,--this Word Of France, Has Got A Terrific Significance. It Shortens Life, And Bereaves The Day Of Its Light.

If You Don't Ride In The Rain, You Don't Ride.

Riding Your Bike

I Suppose Every Old Scholar Has Had The Experience Of Reading Something In A Book Which Was Significant To Him, But Which He Could Never Find Again. Sure He Is That He Read It There, But No One Else Ever Read It, Nor Can He Find It Again, Though He Buy The Book And Ransack Every Page.

It Does Not Need That A Poem Should Be Long. Every Word Was Once A Poem.

Good Breeding, A Union Of Kindness And Independence.

The Men Who Carry Their Points Do Not Need To Inquire Of Their Constituents What They Should Say, But Are Themselves The Country Which They Represent: Nowhere Are Its Emotions Or Opinions So Instant And So True As In Them; Nowhere So Pure From A Selfish Infusion.

We Imperatively Require A Perception Of And A Homage To Beauty In Our Companions. Other Virtues Are In Request In The Field And Workyard, But A Certain Degree Of Taste Is Not To Be Spared In Those We Sit With.

All Promise Outruns Performance.

After Thirty, A Man Wakes Up Sad Every Morning, Excepting Perhaps Five Or Six, Until The Day Of His Death.

But A Compassion For That Which Is Not And Cannot Be Useful And Lovely, Is Degrading And Futile.

The Moment We Indulge Our Affections, The Earth Is Metamorphosed, There Is No Winter And No Night; All Tragedies, All Ennui S, Vanish, All Duties Even.

But To Most Of Us Society Shows Not Its Face And Eye, But Its Side And Back. To Stand In True Relations With Men In A False Age Isworth A Fit Of Insanity, Is It Not?

Every Man Supposes Himself Not To Be Fully Understood Or Appreciated.

We Know Truth When We See It, From Opinion, As We Know When We Are Awake That We Are Awake.

Drive Out Nature With A Fork, She Comes Running Back.

If You Follow The Suburban Fashion In Building A Sumptuous- Looking House For A Little Money, It Will Appear To All Eyes As A Cheap, Dear House.

Your Actions Speak So Loud, I Can't Hear What You Say.

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

Every Man Is Entitled To Be Valued By His Best Moment.

The Scholar Was Not Raised By The Sacred Thoughts Amongst Which He Dwelt, But Used Them To Selfish Ends. He Was A Profane Person,and Became A Showman, Turning His Gifts To Marketable Use, And Not To His Own Sustenance And Growth. It Was Found That The Intellect Could Be Independently Developed, That Is, In Separation From The Man, As Any Single Organ Can Be Invigorated, And The Result Was Monstrous.

Solitude Is Impractical, And Society Fatal. We Must Keep Our Head In The One And Our Hands In The Other. The Conditions Are Met, If We Keep Our Independence, Yet Do Not Lose Our Sympathy.

The Yankee Is One Who, If He Once Gets His Teeth Set On A Thing, All Creation Can't Make Him Let Go.

A Work Of Art Is An Abstract Or Epitome Of The World. It Is The Result Or Expression Of Nature, In Miniature. For, Although The Works Of Nature Are Innumerable And All Different, The Result Or The Expression Of Them All Is Similar And Single.

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.

Sitting Back In The Evening, Stargazing And Stroking Your Dog, Is An Infallible Remedy.

Chiefly The Sea-shore Has Been The Point Of Departure To Knowledge, As To Commerce. The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most.

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.

Why Should We Not Have A First-hand And Immediate Experience Of God?

The Tempered Light Of The Woods Is Like A Perpetual Morning.

Manners Aim To Facilitate Life, To Get Rid Of Impediments, And Bring The Man Pure To Energize. They Aid Our Dealing And Conversation, As A Railway Aids Travelling, By Getting Rid Of All Avoidable Obstructions Of The Road, And Leaving Nothing To Be Conquered But Pure Space.

Women Stand Related To Beautiful Nature Around Us, And The Enamoured Youth Mixes Their Form With Moon And Stars, With Woods And Waters, And The Pomp Of Summer. They Heal Us Of Awkwardness By Their Words And Looks. We Observe Their Intellectual Influence On The Most Serious Student. They Refine And Clear His Mind: Teach Him To Put A Pleasing Method Into What Is Dry And Difficult.

Style Is Only The Frame To Hold Your Thoughts. It Is Like The Sash Of A Window; If Heavy, It Will Obscure The Light.

Character Repudiates Intellect, Yet Excites It; And Character Passes Into Thought, Is Published So, And Then Is Ashamed Before Newflashes Of Moral Worth.

God Made Yeast, As Well As Dough, And Loves Fermentation Just As Dearly As He Loves Vegetation.

Genius Detects Through The Fly, Through The Caterpillar, Through The Grub, Through The Egg, The Constant Individual; Through Countless Individuals The Fixed Species; Through Many Species The Genus; Through All Genera The Steadfast Type; Through All The Kingdoms Of Organized Life The Eternal Unity. Nature Is A Mutable Cloud Which Is Always And Never The Same.

In The History Of The Individual Is Always An Account Of His Condition, And He Knows Himself To Be A Party To His Present Estate.

Overhead The Sanctities Of The Stars Shine Forever-more... Pouring Satire On The Pompous Business Of The Day Which They Close, And Making The Generations Of Men Show Slight And Evanescent.

Each Philosopher, Each Bard, Each Actor Has Only Done For Me, As By A Delegate, What One Day I Can Do For Myself.

Art Is A Jealous Mistress; And If A Man Have A Genius For Painting, Poetry, Music, Architecture Or Philosophy, He Makes A Bad Husband And An Ill Provider.

The Idiot, The Indian, The Child And Unschooled Farmer's Boy Stand Nearer To The Light By Which Nature Is To Be Read, Than The Dissector Or The Antiquary.

Life Must Be Lived On A Higher Plane. We Must Go Up To A Higher Platform, To Which We Are Always Invited To Ascend; There, The Whole Aspect Of Things Changes.

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.

By Persisting In Your Path, Though You Forfeit The Little, You Gain The Great.

To The Body And Mind Which Have Been Cramped By Noxious Work Or Company, Nature Is Medicinal And Restores Their Tone.

I Believe That Our Own Experience Instructs Us That The Secret Of Education Lies In Respecting The Pupil. It Is Not For You To Choose What He Shall Know, What He Shall Do. It Is Chosen And Foreordained, And He Only Holds The Key To His Own Secret. By Your Tampering And Thwarting And Too Much Governing He May Be Hindered From His End And Kept Out Of His Own. Respect The Child. Wait And See The New Product Of Nature. Nature Loves Analogies, But Not Repetitions. Respect The Child. Be Not Too Much His Parent. Trespass Not On His Solitude.

Out Of Sleeping A Waking, Out Of Waking A Sleep.

Not Always Can Flowers, Pearls, Poetry, Protestations, Nor Even Home In Another Heart, Content The Awful Soul That Dwells In Clay.

A Sleeping Child Gives Me The Impression Of A Traveler In A Very Far Country.

The Day Is Always His, Who Works In It With Serenity And Great Aims.

What Is Indispensable To Inspiration? ...sound Sleep And The Provocation Of A Good Book Or A Companion.

The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.

He Who Is In Love Is Wise And Is Becoming Wiser.

He Who Has Acquired The Ability, May Wait Securely The Occasion Of Making It Felt And Appreciated, And Know That It Will Not Loiter.

At Times The Whole World Seems To Be In Conspiracy To Importune You With Emphatic Trifles. Friend, Client, Child, Sickness, Fear, Want, Charity, All Knock At Once At Thy Closet Door And Say,—'come Out Unto Us.' But Keep Thy State; Come Not Into Their Confusion. The Power Men Possess To Annoy Me I Give Them By A Weak Curiosity. No Man Can Come Near Me But Through My Act.

The Sign And Credentials Of The Poet Are That He Announces That Which No Man Foretold

A Philosopher Must Be More Than A Philosopher.

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.

And, In Fine, The Ancient Precept, "know Thyself," And The Modern Precept, "study Nature," Become At Last One Maxim.

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

If You Believe In The Soul, Do Not Clutch At Sensual Sweetness Before It Is Ripe On The Slow Tree Of Cause And Effect.

The Desire Of Gold Is Not For Gold. It Is Not The Love Of Much Wheat, And Wool And Household Stuff. It Is The Means Of Freedom And Benefit.

I Am A Willow Of The Wilderness, Loving The Wind That Bent Me.

Get Health. No Labor, Effort Nor Exercise That Can Gain It Must Be Grudged.

The World Exists For The Education Of Each Man.

'tis A Good Rule In Every Journey To Provide Some Piece Of Liberal Study To Rescue The Hours Which Bad Weather, Bad Company, And Taverns Steal From The Best Economist.

The Forest Is My Loyal Friend A Delphic Shrine To Me.

The Roses Under My Window Make No Reference To Former Roses Or Better Ones; They Are What They Are; They Exist With God Today. There Is No Time To Them. There Is Simply The Rose; It Is Perfect In Every Moment Of Its Existence.

Pride Is Handsome, Economical; Pride Eradicates So Many Vices, Letting None Subsist But Itself, That It Seems As If It Were A Great Gain To Exchange Vanity For Pride.

The Secret Of Genius Is To Suffer No Fiction To Exist For Us; To Realize All That We Know; In The High Refinement Of Modern Life,in Arts, In Sciences, In Books, In Men, To Exact Good Faith, Reality, And A Purpose; And First, Last, Midst, And Without End, To Honor Every Truth By Use.

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

Each Of Us Sees In Others What We Carry In Our Own Hearts.

No Man Thoroughly Understands A Truth Until He Has Contended Against It.

We Early Arrive At The Great Discovery That There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men: That What Is Individual Is Less Than What Is Universalthat Error, Vice And Disease Have Their Seat In The Superficial Or Individual Nature.

If You Would Lift Me Up, You've Got To Be On Higher Ground.

No Hope So Bright But Is The Beginning Of Its Own Fulfilment.

The Indian Who Was Laid Under A Curse, That The Wind Should Not Blow On Him, Nor Water Flow To Him, Nor Fire Burn Him, Is A Type Of Us All. The Dearest Events Are Summer-rain, And We The Para Coats That Shed Every Drop. Nothing Is Left Us Now But Death. We Look To That With A Grim Satisfaction, Saying, There At Least Is Reality That Will Not Dodge Us.

Meek Young Men Grow Up In Libraries.

I Do Not See How A Barbarous Community And A Civilized Community Can Constitute A State. I Think We Must Get Rid Of Slavery Or We Must Get Rid Of Freedom.

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.

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.

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

When A Man Says To Me, "i Have The Intensest Love Of Nature," At Once I Know That He Has None.

Saving The Earth

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.

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

The Idea Of God Ends In A Paltry Methodist Meeting-house.

The Most Dangerous Thing Is Illusion.

Living Without Laughing Isn't Living. Be Silly. Be Honest. Be Kind.

I Remember An Answer Which When Quite Young I Was Prompted To Make A Valued Adviser Who Was Wont To Importune Me With The Dear Old Doctrines Of The Church. On My Saying, What Have I To Do With The Sacredness Of Traditions, If I Live Wholly From Within? My Friend Suggested, - "but These Impulses May Be From Below, Not From Above." I Replied, 'they Do Not Seem To Me To Be Such; But If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then From The Devil.'

We Lie In The Lap Of Immense Intelligence.

There Is An Optical Illusion About Every Person We Meet.

Optical Illusions

Transcendentalism

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

Who Makes And Keeps The Jew Or The Negro Base, Who But You, Who Exclude Them From The Rights Which Others Enjoy?

Where Dwells The Religion? Tell Me First Where Dwells Electricity, Or Motion, Or Thought Or Gesture. They Do Not Dwell Or Stay Atall. Electricity Cannot Be Made Fast, Mortared Up And Ended, Like London Monument, Or The Tower, So That You Shall Know Where To Find It, And Keep It Fixed, As The English Do With Their Things, Forevermore; It Is Passing, Glancing, Gesticular; It Is A Traveller, A Newness, A Surprise, A Secret Which Perplexes Them, And Puts Them Out.

The Wings Of Time Are Black And White, Pied With Morning And With Night.

Black And White

Give All To Love: Obey Thy Heart; Friends, Kindred, Days, Estate, Good Fame, Plans, Credit, And The Muse,- Nothing Refuse.

Throb Thine With Nature's Throbbing Breast.

The Crystal Sphere Of Thought Is As Concentrical As The Geological Structure Of The Globe. As Our Soils And Rocks Lie In Strata, Concentric Strata, So Do All Men's Thinkings Run Laterally, Never Vertically.

When You Were Born You Were Crying And Everyone Else Was Smiling. Live Your Life So At The End, Your're The One Who Is Smiling And Everyone Else Is Crying.

The End Of Being Is To Know; And If You Say, The End Of Knowledge Is Action,-why, Yes, But The End Of That Action Again, Is Knowledge.

Great Causes Are Never Tried On Their Merits; But The Cause Is Reduced To Particulars To Suit The Size Of The Partizans, And The Contention Is Ever Hottest On Minor Matters.

The Only Prudence In Life Is Concentration.

Focus And Concentration

Our Chief Want In Life, Is, Someone Who Shall Make Us Do What We Can. This Is The Service Of A Friend. With Him We Are Easily Great.

Line In Nature Is Not Found; Unit And Universe Are Round.

Commerce Is A Game Of Skill Which Everyone Cannot Play And Few Can Play Well.

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.

We Cannot Describe The Natural History Of The Soul, But We Know That It Is Divine. All Things Are Known To The Soul. It Is Not To Be Surprised By Any Communication. Nothing Can Be Greater Than It, Let Those Fear And Those Fawn Who Will. The Soul Is In Her Native Realm; And It Is Wider Than Space, Older Than Time, Wide As Hope, Rich As Love. Pusillanimity And Fear She Refuses With A Beautiful Scorn; They Are Not For Her Who Putteth On Her Coronation Robes, And Goes Out Through Universal Love To Universal Power.

The Uses Of Travel Are Occasional, And Short; But The Best Fruit It Finds, When It Finds It, Is Conversation; And This Is A Main Function Of Life.

The Eloquent Man Is He Who Is No Beautiful Speaker, But Who Is Inwardly And Desperately Drunk With A Certain Belief.

Little Thinks, In The Field, Yon Red-cloaked Clown, Of Thee, From The Hill-top Looking Down; And The Heifer, That Lows In The Upland Farm, Far-heard, Lows Not Thine Ear To Charm; The Sexton Tolling The Bell At Noon, Dreams Not That Great Napoleon Sto

The Field Cannot Be Seen From Within The Field.

A Man Builds A Fine House; And Now He Has A Master, And A Task For Life.

We Rail At Trade, But The Historian Of The World Will See That It Was The Principle Of Liberty; That It Settled America, And Destroyed Feudalism, And Made Peace And Keeps Peace; That It Will Abolish Slavery.

First Be A Good Animal.

You Cannot Do A Kindness Too Soon, For You Never Know How Soon It Will Be Too Late.

In Order For One To Learn The Important Lessons Of Life, One Must First Overcome A Fear Each Day.

The Happiest Man Is He Who Learns From Nature The Lesson Of Worship

All Men Are Poets At Heart.

Everything Runs To Excess; Every Good Quality Is Noxious If Unmixed.

Perpetual Modernism Is The Measure Of Merit In Every Work Of Art.

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

The Soul Lets No Man Go Without Some Visitations And Holy-days Of A Diviner Presence.

I See Not Any Road Of Perfect Peace Which A Man Can Walk But After The Counsel Of His Own Bosom.

It Does Not To Dwell On Dreams And Forget To Live, But It Is Equally Foolish To Ignore The Past – Never Forget.

Up And Away For Life! Be Fleet!- The Frost-king Ties My Fumbling Feet, Sings In My Ears, My Hands Are Stones, Curdles The Blood To The Marble Bones, Tugs At The Heart-strings, Numbs The Sense, And Hems In Life With Narrowing Fence. Well, In This Broad Bed Lie And Sleep,- The Punctual Stars Will Vigil Keep,- Embalmed By Purifying Cold; The Winds Shall Sing Their Dead-march Old, The Snow Is No Ignoble Shroud, The Moon Thy Mourner, And The Cloud.

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.

Courage Of The Soldier Awakes The Courage Of Woman.

Wise Cultivated, Genial Conversation Is The Last Flower Of Civilization, And The Best Result Which Life Has To Offer Us,--a Cup For Gods, Which Has No Repentance. Conversation Is Our Account Of Ourselves. All We Have, All We Can, All We Know, Is Brought Into Play, And As The Reproduction In Finer Form, Of All Our Havings.

As The Eye Is The Best Composer, So Light Is The First Of Painters. There Is No Object So Foul That Intense Light Will Not Make Beautiful; And The Stimulus It Affords To The Sense, And A Sort Of Infinitude Which It Hath Like Space And Time, Make All Matter Gay.

Every Wall Is A Door.

As There Is A Use In Medicine For Poisons, So The World Cannot Move Without Rogues.

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

There Can Be No Excess To Love, None To Knowledge, None To Beauty.

Some Of The Sweetest Hours In Life, In Retrospect Will Be Found To Have Been Spent With Books.

Only Be Admonished By What You Already See, Not To Strike Leagues Of Friendship With Cheap Persons, Where No Friendship Can Be. Our Impatience Betrays Us Into Rash And Foolish Alliances Which No God Attends.

All Things Are Flowing, Even Those That Seem Immovable. The Adamant Is Always Passing Into Smoke. The Plants Imbibe The Materialswhich They Want From The Air And The Ground. They Burn, That Is, Exhale And Decompose Their Own Bodies Into The Air And Earth Again. The Animal Burns, Or Undergoes The Like Perpetual Consumption. The Earth Burns, The Mountains Burn And Decompose, Slower, But Incessantly.

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

The Goof Man, In Dealing With His People, Taxes Them With Luxury.

A Little Praise Goes A Great Ways.

Wit Makes Its Own Welcome, And Levels All Distinctions.

Condense Some Daily Experience Into A Glowing Symbol And An Audience Is Electrified.

We Commonly Say That The Rich Man Can Speak The Truth, Can Afford Honesty, Can Afford Independence Of Opinion And Action;--and That Is The Theory Of Nobility. But It Is The Rich Man In A True Sense, That Is To Say, Not The Man Of Large Income And Large Expenditure, But Solely The Man Whose Outlay Is Less Than His Income And Is Steadily Kept So.

There Is One Topic Peremptorily Forbidden To All Well-bred, To All Rational Mortals, Namely, Their Distempers.

The Squirrel Hoards Nuts And The Bee Gathers Honey, Without Knowing What They Do, And They Are Thus Provided For Without Selfishness Or Disgrace.

The Charm Of The Best Courages Is That They Are Inventions, Inspirations, Flashes Of Genius.

A Man Is What He Thinks About All Day Long.

There Is Always Safety In Valor.

The Vocabulary Of An Omniscient Man Would Embrace Words And Images Excluded From Polite Conversation. What Would Be Base, Or Even Obscene, To The Obscene, Becomes Illustrious, Spoken In A New Connexion Of Thought.

Popularity Is For Dolls.

The Lover Of Letters Loves Power Too.

The Masses Have No Habit Of Self-reliance Or Original Action.

We Forget Ourselves And Our Destinies In Health, And The Chief Use Of Temporary Sickness Is To Remind Us Of These Concerns.

The Trail Of The Serpent Reaches Into All The Lucrative Professions And Practices Of Man. Each Has Its Own Wrongs. Each Finds A Tender And Very Intelligent Conscience A Disqualification For Success. Each Requires Of The Practitioner A Certain Shutting Of The Eyes, A Certain Dapperness And Compliance, An Acceptance Of Customs, A Sequestration From The Sentiments Of Generosity And Love, A Compromise Of Private Opinion And Lofty Integrity.

It Is The Ignorant And Childish Part Of Mankind That Is The Fighting Part. Idle And Vacant Minds Want Excitement

The Whole Of What We Know Is A System Of Compensation. Every Defect In One Manner Is Made Up In Another. Every Suffering Is Rewarded; Every Sacrifice Is Made Up; Every Debt Is Paid.

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

Self Improvement

Nature Turns All Malfaisance To Good.

For The World Was Built In Order Around The Atoms March In Tune; Rhyme The Pipe, And Time The Warder, The Sun Obeys Them, And The Moon.

Go Where He Will, The Wise Man Is At Home, His Hearth The Earth, His Hall The Azure Dome.

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

Nature Is Made To Conspire With Spirit To Emancipate Us.

I Like The Church, I Like A Cowl, I Love A Prophet Of The Soul; And On My Heart Monastic Aisles Fall Like Sweet Strains Or Pensive Smiles; Yet Not For All His Faith Can See, Would I That Cowled Churchman Be.

I Covet Truth; Beauty Is Unripe Childhood's Cheat; I Leave It Behind With The Games Of Youth.

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

The Picture Waits For My Verdict; It Is Not To Command Me, But I Am To Settle Its Claim To Praise.

You Have A Place To Live In This World Which No Other Man Can Occupy; Hence No Competitors.

The Primary Wisdom Is Intuition. In That Deep Force, The Last Fact Behind Which Analysis Cannot Go, All Things Find Their Origin.

Ever The Words Of The Gods Resound; But The Porches Of Man's Ear Seldom In This Low Life's Round Are Unsealed, That He May Hear.

That Is Ever The Difference Between The Wise And The Unwise: The Latter Wonders At What Is Unusual; The Wise Man Wonders At The Usual.

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.

Do What We Can, Summer Will Have Its Flies.

I See My Trees Repair Their Boughs.

The Cruelest Foe Is A Masked Benefactor. The Wars Which Make History So Dreary Have Served The Cause Of Truth And Virtue.

In The Morning A Man Walks With His Whole Body; In The Evening, Only With His Legs. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals And Miscellaneous Notebooks Greek Architecture Is The Perfect Flowering Of Geometry.

Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Every One Of Its Members.

Rhodora! If The Sages Ask Thee Why This Charm Is Wasted On The Earth And Sky, Tell Them, Dear, That If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being.

Enthusiasm Is The Engine Of Success.

Congratulations

How Can He [today's Writer] Be Honored, When He Does Not Honor Himself; When He Loses Himself In The Crowd; When He Is No Longer The Lawgiver, But The Sycophant, Ducking To The Giddy Opinion Of A Reckless Public.

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

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.

What I Must Do Is All That Concerns Me, Not What The People Think. This Rule, Equally Arduous In Actual And In Intellectual Life, May Serve For The Whole Distinction Between Greatness And Meanness.

Who Hears Me, Who Understands Me, Becomes Mine, A Possession For All Time.

The Narrow Sectarian Cannot Read Astronomy With Impunity. The Creeds Of His Church Shrivel Like Dried Leaves At The Door Of The Observatory.

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.

But Your Isolation Must Not Be Mechanical, But Spiritual, That Is, Must Be Elevation.

We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Power Of Thoughts.

Power Of Thought

Tomorrow Is A New Day; Begin It Well And Serenely And With Too High A Spirit To Be Encumbered With Your Old Nonsense.

Positive Thinking

A Man Is Usually More Careful Of His Money Than He Is Of His Principles.

Was Never Secret History But Birds Tell It In The Bowers.

If The Red Slayer Think He Slays, Or If The Slain Think He Is Slain, They Know Not Well The Subtle Ways, I Keep And Pass And Turn Again.

Astronomy Is A Cold, Desert Science, With All Its Pompous Figures,-depends A Little Too Much On The Glass-grinder, Too Little On The Mind. 't Is Of No Use To Show Us More Planets And Systems. We Know Already What Matter Is, And More Or Less Of It Does Not Signify.

As Many Languages As He Has, As Many Friends, As Many Arts And Trades, So Many Times Is He A Man.

Sport Is The Bloom And Glow Of A Perfect Health. The Great Will Not Condescend To Take Anything Seriously; All Must Be As Gay As The Song Of A Canary, Though It Were The Building Of Cities, Or The Eradication Of Old And Foolish Churches And Nations, Which Have Cumbered The Earth Long Thousands Of Years.

Free Should Be The Scholar - Free And Brave.

As Thinkers, Mankind Has Ever Divided Into Two Sects, Materialists And Idealists; The First Class Founding On Experience, The Second On Consciousness; The First Class Beginning To Think From The Data Of The Senses, The Second Class Perceive That The Senses Are Not Final And Say, The Senses Give Us Representations Of Things, But What Are The Things Themselves, They Cannot Tell. The Materialist Insists On Facts, On History, On The Force Of Circumstances And The Animal Wants Of Man; The Idealists On The Power Of Thought And Will, On Inspiration, On Miracle, On Individual Culture.

I Now Require This Of All Pictures, That They Domesticate Me, Not That They Dazzle Me. Pictures Must Not Be Too Picturesque. Nothing Astonishes Men So Much As Common-sense And Plain Dealing. All Great Actions Have Been Simple, And All Great Pictures Are.

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

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

Nature Does Not Cocker Us: We Are Children, Not Pets: She Is Not Fond: Everything Is Dealt To Us Without Fear Or Favor, After Severe Universal Laws.

As I Walked In The Woods I Felt What I Often Feel That Nothing Can Befall Me In Life, No Calamity, No Disgrace (leaving Me My Eyes) To Which Nature Will Not Offer A Sweet Consolation. Standing On The Bare Ground With My Head Bathed By The Blithe Air, & Uplifted Into The Infinite Space, I Become Happy In My Universal Relations. The Name Of The Nearest Friend Sounds Then Foreign & Accidental. I Am The Heir Of Uncontained Beauty And Power.

A Man Is Related To All Nature.

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Diane Von Furstenberg

Bruce Feirstein

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