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When You Have Worn Out Yourshoes, The Strength Of The Shoe Leather Has Passed Into The Fiber Ofyour Body. I Measure Your Health By The Number Of Shoes And Hats Andclothes You Have Worn Out.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When You Have Worn

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When You Have Worn Out Yourshoes, The Strength Of The Shoe Leather Has Passed Into The Fiber Ofyour Body. I Measure Your Health By The Number Of Shoes And Hats Andclothes You Have Worn Out.

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In My Dealing With My Child, My Latin And Greek, My Accomplishments And My Money Stead Me Nothing; But As Much Soul As I Have Avails. If I Am Wilful, He Sets His Will Against Mine, One For One, And Leaves Me, If I Please, The Degradation Of Beating Him By My Superiority Of Strength. But If I Renounce My Will, And Act For The Soul, Setting That Up As Umpire Between Us Two, Out Of His Young Eyes Looks The Same Soul; He Reveres And Loves With Me.

Every Advantage Has Its Tax.

It Is Very Unhappy, But Too Late To Be Helped, The Discovery We Have Made, That We Exist

Life Has No Memory. That Which Proceeds In Succession Might Be Remembered, But That Which Is Coexistent, Or Ejaculated From A Deeper Cause, As Yet Far From Being Conscious, Knows Not Its Own Tendency.

In All Things I Would Have The Island Of A Man Inviolate. Let Us Sit Apart As The Gods, Talking From Peak To Peak All Round Olympus. No Degree Of Affection Need Invade This Religion.

Though The Wide Universe Is Full Of Good, No Kernel Of Nourishing Corn Can Come To Him But Through His Toil Bestowed On That Plot Of Ground Which Is Given To Him To Till.

A Beautiful Behavior Is Better Than A Beautiful Form; It Gives A Higher Pleasure Than Statues Or Pictures; It Is The Finest Of Fine Arts.

The Effects Of Opposition Are Wonderful. There Are Men Who Rise Refreshed On Hearing Of A Threat, Men To Whom A Crisis, Which Intimidates And Paralyzes The Majority, Comes As Graceful And Beloved As A Bride!

The Most Indian Thing About The Indian Is Surely Not His Moccasins Or His Calumet, His Wampum Or His Stone Hatched, But Traits Of Character And Sagacity, Skill, Or Passion.

Native American

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

Wise Men Are Not Wise At All Hours, And Will Speak Five Times From Their Taste Or Their Humor, To Once From Their Reason.

Each Man Has His Own Vocation. The Talent Is The Call. There Is One Direction In Which All Space Is Open To Him. He Has Faculties Silently Inviting Him Thither To Endless Exertion. He Is Like A Ship In The River; He Runs Against Obstructions On Every Side But One; On That Side All Obstruction Is Taken Away, And He Sweeps Serenely Over A Deepening Channel Into An Infinite Sea.

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

Invention Breeds Invention.

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

What Your Heart Thinks Is Great, Is Great. The Soul's Emphasis Is Always Right.

The True Ship Is The Ship Builder.

Magic And All That Is Ascribed To It Is A Deep Presentiment Of The Powers Of Science.

The Profoundest Thought Or Passion Sleeps As In A Mine, Until An Equal Mind And Heart Finds And Publishes It.

The Exceptional Life Depends Not On Working Harder, But On Different, Even Opposite, Actions From Habit And The Crowd.

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

In The Morning A Man Walks With His Whole Body; In The Evening, Only With His Legs.

Morning Inspirational

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

Once You Make A Decision, The Universe Conspires To Make It Happen.

The Englishman Who Has Lost His Fortune Is Said To Have Died Of A Broken Heart.

Sickness Is Poor-spirited, And Cannot Serve Anyone; It Must Husband Its Resources To Live. But Health Or Fullness Answers Its Own Ends, And Has To Spare, Runs Over, And Inundates The Neighborhoods And Creeks Of Other Men's Necessities.

The Book Of Nature Is The Book Of Fate. She Turns The Gigantic Pages, Leaf After Leaf Never Returning One.

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

A Man Makes Inferiors His Superiors By Heat; Self-control Is The Rule.

The World Is Full Of Judgment-days, And Into Every Assembly That A Man Enters, In Every Action He Attempts, He Is Gauged And Stamped.

The Eye Is Easily Frightened.

God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards

A Man In Pursuit Of Greatness Feels No Little Wants.

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

Let Us Not Look East And West For Materials Of Conversation, But Rest In Presence And Unity. A Just Feeling Will Fast Enough Supply Fuel For Discourse, If Speaking Be More Grateful Than Silence. When People Come To See Us, We Foolishly Prattle, Lest We Be Inhospitable. But Things Said For Conversation Are Chalk Eggs. Don't Say Things. What You Are Stands Over You The While, And Thunders So That I Cannot Hear What You Say To The Contrary.

In Youth, We Clothe Ourselves With Rainbows, With Hope & Love, & Go As Brave As The Zodiack. In Age We Put Out Another Sort Of Perspiration; Gout, Fever, Rheumatism, Caprice, Doubt, Fretting, And Avarice.

When I Read A Good Book, I Wish My Life Were Three Thousand Years Long.

Every Man Is A Consumer, And Ought To Be A Producer. He Is By Constitution Expensive, And Needs To Be Rich.

Books Are The Best Of Things, Well Used; Abused, Among The Worst...they Are For Nothing But To Inspire.

Be Sure Then To Read No Mean Books. Shun The Spawn Of The Press On The Gossip Of The Hour. Do Not Read What You Shall Learn, Without Asking, In The Street And The Train.

Knowledge Exists To Be Imparted.

I See The Spectacle Of Morning From The Hilltop Over Against My House, From Daybreak To Sunrise, With Emotions Which An Angel Might Share. The Long Slender Bars Of Cloud Float Like Fishes In The Sea Of Crimson Light. From The Earth, As A Shore, I Look Out Into That Silent Sea. I Seem To Partake Its Rapid Transformations; The Active Enchantment Reaches My Dust, And I Dilate And Conspire With The Morning Wind.

For The Time Of Towns Is Tolled From The World By Funereal Chimes, But In Nature The Universal Hours Are Counted By Succeeding Tribes Of Animals And Plants, And By Growth Of Joy On Joy.

All Science Is Transcendental Or Else Passes Away.

Man Exists For His Own Sake And Not To Add A Laborer To The State.

But The Best Read Naturalist Who Lends An Entire And Devout Attention To Truth, Will See That There Remains Much To Learn Of His Relation To The World, And That It Is Not To Be Learned By Any Addition Or Subtraction Or Other Comparison Of Known Quantities, But Is Arrived At By Untaught Sallies Of The Spirit, By A Continual Self-recovery, And By Entire Humility.

Science Does Not Know Its Debt To Imagination.

Besides, Our Action On Each Other, Good As Well As Evil, Is So Incidental And At Random, That We Can Seldom Hear The Acknowledgments Of Any Person Who Would Thank Us For A Benefit, Without Some Shame And Humiliation. We Can Rarely Strike A Direct Stroke, But Must Be Content With An Oblique One; We Seldom Have The Satisfaction Of Yielding A Direct Benefit, Which Is Directly Received.

My Hours Are Peaceful Centuries.

Life Has A Way Of Demanding That You Live It.

Art Should Exhilarate, And Throw Down The Walls Of Circumstance On Every Side, Awakening In The Beholder The Same Sense Of Universal Relation And Power Which The Work Evinced In The Artist.

The World Is His Who Can See Through Its Pretension.

American Scholar

Nor Sequent Centuries Could Hit Orbit And Sum Of Shakspeare's Wit. The Men Who Lived With Him Became Poets, For The Air Was Fame.

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

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

Really, All Things And Persons Are Related To Us, But According To Our Nature, They Act On Us Not At Once, But In Succession, Andwe Are Made Aware Of Their Presence One At A Time. All Persons, All Things Which We Have Known, Are Here Present, And Many More Than We See; The World Is Full.

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

There Is The Illusion Of Time, Which Is Very Deep; Who Has Disposed Of It? Mor Come To The Conviction That What Seems The Succession Of Thought Is Only The Distribution Of Wholes Into Causal Series.

A Man Is A God In Ruins.

He Who Does A Good Deed Is Instantly Ennobled. He Who Does A Mean Deed Is By The Action Itself Contracted.

An Individual Has A Healthy Personality To The Exact Degree To Which They Have The Propensity To Look For The Good In Every Situation.

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

Sorrow Makes Us All Children Again.

I Pack My Trunk, Embrace My Friends, Embark On The Sea And At Last Wake Up In Naples, And There Beside Me Is The Stern Fact, The Sad Self, Unrelenting, Identical, That I Fled From.

Jesus Christ Belonged To The True Race Of The Prophets. He Saw With An Open Eye The Mystery Of The Soul. . Alone In All History He Estimated The Greatness Of Man.

In Sculpture Did Ever Anybody Call The Apollo A Fancy Piece? Or Say Of The Laocoon How It Might Be Made Different? A Masterpiece Of Art Has In The Mind A Fixed Place In The Chain Of Being, As Much As A Plant Or A Crystal.

There Is No Great And No Small To The Soul That Maketh All.

Doing Well Is A Result Of Doing Good.

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.

It Is The Privilege Of Any Human Work Which Is Well Done To Invest The Doer With A Certain Haughtiness. He Can Well Afford Not To Conciliate, Whose Faithful Work Will Answer For Him.

The Beautiful Is Never Plentiful.

Better Be A Nettle In The Side Of Your Friend Than His Echo.

In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

Beauty Is The Pilot Of The Young Soul.

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.

Night-dreams Trace On Memory's Wall Shadows Of The Thoughts Of Day, And Thy Fortunes, As They Fall, The Bias Of The Will Betray.

Great Men Are More Distinguished By Range And Extent Than By Originality.

A Man Is A Golden Impossibility. The Line He Must Walk Is A Hair's Breadth. The Wise Through Excess Of Wisdom Is Made A Fool.

A Man Becomes What He Thinks About Most Of The Time

The Good Rain, Like A Bad Preacher, Does Not Know When To Leave Off.

The Three Practical Rules, Then, Which I Have To Offer, Are, --/ Never Read A Book That Is Not A Year Old./ Never Read Any But The Famed Books./ Never Read Any But What You Like.

History Is Full, Down To This Day, Of The Imbecility Of Kings And Governors. They Are A Class Of Persons Much To Be Pitied, For They Know Not What They Should Do.

Those Who Cannot Tell What They Desire Or Expect, Still Sigh And Struggle With Indefinite Thoughts And Vast Wishes.

We Boast Our Emancipation From Many Superstitions; But If We Have Broken Any Idols, It Is Through A Transfer Of Idolatry.

God Said, I Am Tired Of Kings, I Suffer Them No More; Up To My Ear This Morning Brings The Outrage Of The Poor.

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 Power Of Love, As The Basis Of A State, Has Never Been Tried.

Nature Is An Endless Combination And Repetition Of A Very Few Laws. She Hums The Old Well-known Air Through Innumerable Variations.

Nature Encourages No Looseness; Pardons No Errors.

Each Truth That A Writer Acquires Is A Lantern, Which He Turns Full On What Facts And Thoughts Lay Already In His Mind, And Behold, All The Mats And Rubbish Which Had Littered His Garret Become Precious. Every Trivial Fact In His Private Biography Becomes An Illustration Of This New Principle, Revisits The Day, And Delights All Men By Its Piquancy And New Charm.

Always Pay; For First Or Last You Must Pay Your Entire Debt.

The World Is The Ring Of His Spells, And The Play Of His Miracles.

Enthusiasm Is The Engine Of Success.

Congratulations

All The Thoughts Of A Turtle Are Turtle

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken. The Whole Human Family Is Bathed With An Element Of Love Like A Fine Ether. How Many Persons We Meet In Houses, Whom We Scarcely Speak To, Whom Yet We Honor And Who Honor Us! How Many We See In The Street, Or Sit With In Church, Whom Though Silently, We Warmly Rejoice To Be With! Read The Language Of These Wandering Eye-beams. The Heart Knoweth.

One Idea Lights A Thousand Candles.

I Am Constrained Every Moment To Acknowledge A Higher Origin For Events Than The Will I Call Mine.

Noblesse Oblige; Or, Superior Advantages Bind You To Larger Generosity.

A Sage Is The Instructor Of A Hundred Ages.

The Best Picture Makes Us Say, I Am A Painter Also.

Character Is Higher Than Intellect. Thinking Is The Function; Living Is The Functionary.

Coal Is A Portable Climate. It Carries The Heat Of The Tropics To Labrador And The Polar Circle; And It Is The Means Of Transporting Itself Whithersoever It Is Wanted. Watt And Stephenson Whispered In The Ear Of Mankind Their Secret, That A Half-ounce Of Coal Will Draw Two Tons A Mile, And Coal Carries Coal, By Rail And By Boat, To Make Canada As Warm As Calcutta, And With Its Comfort Brings Its Industrial Power.

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

Half A Man's Wisdom Goes With His Courage.

What If You Do Fail, And Get Fairly Rolled In The Dirt Once Or Twice. Up Again, You Shall Never Be So Afraid Of A Tumble.

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.

If A Man's Eye Is On The Eternal, His Intellect Will Grow.

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

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

To Speak Truly, Few Adult Persons Can See Nature. Most Persons Do Not See The Sun.

Next To The Originator Of A Good Sentence Is The First Quoter Of It.

There Are Books... Which Rank In Our Life With Parents And Lovers And Passionate Experiences.

In All Conversation Between Two Persons, Tacit Reference Is Made, As To A Third Party, To A Common Nature. That Third Party Or Common Nature Is Not Social; It Is Impersonal; Is God.

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

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

A Frenchman May Possibly Be Clean; An Englishman Is Conscientiously Clean.

In Failing Circumstances No One Can Be Relied On To Keep Their Integrity.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose.

Difference Of Opinion Is The One Crime Which Kings Never Forgive.

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

The Measure Of Mental Health Is The Disposition To Find Good Everywhere.

An Answer In Words Is Delusive; It Is Really No Answer To The Questions You Ask.

The Universe Is The Externalization Of The Soul.

The Most Dangerous Thing Is Illusion.

Let The Realist Not Mind Appearances. Let Him Delegate To Others The Costly Courtesies And Decorations Of Social Life. The Virtuesare Economists, But Some Of The Vices Are Also. Thus, Next To Humility, I Have Noticed That Pride Is A Pretty Good Husband. A Good Pride Is, As I Reckon It, Worth From Five Hundred To Fifteen Hundred A Year.

Society Never Advances. It Recedes As Fast On One Side As It Gains On The Other. It Undergoes Continual Changes: It Is Barbarous, It Is Civilized, It Is Rich, It Is Scientific; But This Change Is Not Amelioration. For Every Thing That Is Given, Something Else Is Taken. Society Acquires New Arts And Loses Old Instincts.

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

There Is No Good Theory Of Disease Which Does Not At Once Suggest A Cure.

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

In My Utter Impotence To Test The Authenticity Of The Report Of My Senses, To Know Whether The Impressions They Make On Me Correspond With Outlying Objects, What Difference Does It Make, Whether Orion Is Up There In Heaven, Or Some God Paints The Image In The Firmament Of The Soul?

We Are Of Different Opinions At Different Hours, But We Always May Be Said To Be At Heart On The Side Of Truth.

Different Opinions

Every Book Is A Quotation; And Every House Is A Quotation Out Of All Forests, And Mines, And Stone Quarries; And Every Man Is A Quotation From All His Ancestors.

We Don't Grow Old. When We Cease To Grow, We Become Old.

It Is A Greater Joy To See The Author's Author, Than Himself.

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

One Can Never Truly Savor Success Until First Tasting Adversity.

Foolish, Whenever You Take The Meanness And Formality Of That Thing You Do, Instead Of Converting It Into The Obedient Spiracle Ofyour Character And Aims.

The World Is The Perennial Miracle Which The Soul Worketh.

It Is One Of The Beautiful Compensations In This Life That No One Can Sincerely Try To Help Another Without Helping Himself.

Those Who Are Esteemed Umpires Of Taste, Are Often Persons Who Have Acquired Some Knowledge Of Admired Pictures Or Sculptures, Andhave An Inclination For Whatever Is Elegant; But If You Inquire Whether They Are Beautiful Souls, And Whether Their Own Acts Are Like Fair Pictures, You Learn That They Are Selfish And Sensual. Their Cultivation Is Local, As If You Should Rub A Log Of Dry Wood In One Spot To Produce Fire, All The Rest Remaining Cold.

Among The Map Makers Of Each Generation Are The Risk Takers, Those Who See The Opportunities, Seize The Moment And Expand Man's Vision Of The Future

Visions Of The Future

Life Is Comic Or Pitiful As Soon As The High Ends Of Being Fade Out Of Sight, And Man Becomes Near-sighted, And Can Only Attend Towhat Addresses The Senses.

I Didn't Find My Friends; The Good Lord Gave Them To Me.

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.

None Of Us Will Ever Accomplish Anything Excellent Or Commanding Except When He Listens To This Whisper Which Is Heard By Him Alone.

God Will Have Life To Be Real; We Will Be Damned, But It Shall Be Theatrical.

Nothing Shall Warp Me From The Belief That Every Man Is A Lover Of Truth. There Is No Pure Lie, No Pure Malignity In Nature. The Entertainment Of The Proposition Of Depravity Is The Last Profligacy And Profanation. There Is No Skepticism, No Atheism But That. Could It Be Received Into Common Belief, Suicide Would Unpeople The Planet.

Let The Words Be Gazetted And Ridiculous Henceforward.

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.

To Finish The Moment, To Find The Journey's End In Every Step Of The Road, To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours, Is Wisdom.

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

We Do Not Count A Man's Years Until He Has Nothing Else To Count.

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.

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.

The Field Cannot Be Seen From Within The Field.

Our Religion Vulgarly Stands On Numbers Of Believers. Whenever The Appeal Is Made--no Matter How Indirectly--to Numbers, Proclamation Is Then And There Made, That Religion Is Not. He That Finds God A Sweet, Enveloping Presence, Who Shall Dare To Come In?

I Have Heard That Stiff People Lose Something Of Their Awkwardness Under High Ceilings, And In Spacious Halls. I Think, Sculptureand Painting Have An Effect To Teach Us Manners, And Abolish Hurry.

The Selfish Man Suffers More From His Selfishness Than He From Whom That Selfishness Withholds Some Important Benefit.

Evermore In The World Is This Marvelous Balance Of Beauty And Disgust, Magnificence And Rats.

The Maker Of A Sentence Launches Out Into The Infinite.

Creative Writing

Tobacco, Coffee, Alcohol, Hashish, Prussic Acid, Strychnine, Are Weak Dilutions; The Surest Poison Is Time. This Cup Which Nature Puts To Our Lips, Has A Wonderful Virtue, Surpassing That Of Any Other Draught. It Opens The Senses, Adds Power, Fills Us With Exalted Dreams, Which We Call Hope, Love, Ambition, Science; Especially It Creates A Craving For Larger Draughts Of Itself.

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

We Are Always Getting Ready To Live, But Never Living... The Wave Moves Onward But The Particles Of Which It Is Composed Do Not... It Cannot Be But That At Intervals Throughout Society There Are Real Men Intermixed . . . As The Carpenter Puts One Iron Bar In His Bannister For Every Five Or Six Wooden Ones.

I Would Study, I Would Know, I Would Admire Forever.

All Life Is An Experiment. Place Yourself In The Middle Of The Stream Of Power And Wisdom Which Animates All Whom It Floats, And You Are Without Effort Impelled To Truth, To Right And A Perfect Contentment. I Wish To Write Such Rhymes As Shall Not Suggest A Restraint, But Contrariwise The Wildest Freedom. Immortality. I Notice That As Soon As Writers Broach This Question They Begin To Quote. I Hate Quotation. Tell Me What You Know.

Great Thoughts Ensure Musical Expression.

Musical Expression

When A Natural King Becomes A Titular King, Every Body Is Pleased And Satisfied.

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 Eye Is The Best Of Artists.

There Is Properly No History, Only Biography.

A Man Cannot Utter Two Or Three Sentences Without Disclosing To Intelligent Ears Precisely Where He Stands In Life And Thought, Whether In The Kingdom Of The Senses And The Understanding, Or In That Of Ideas And Imagination, Or In The Realm Of Intuitions And Duty.

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.

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things; Each Once A Stroke Of Genius Or Of Love, Now Repeated And Hardened Into Usage.

I Believe In Eternity. I Can Find Greece, Palestine, Italy, Spain, And The Islands, - The Genius And Creative Principle Of Each And Of All Eras, In My Own Mind.

Every Individual Nature Has Its Own Beauty. One Is Struck In Every Company, At Every Fireside, With The Riches Of Nature, When He Hears So Many New Tones, All Musical, Sees In Each Person Original Manners, Which Have A Proper And Peculiar Charm, And Reads New Expressions Of Face. He Perceives That Nature Has Laid For Each The Foundations Of A Divine Building, If The Soul Will Build Thereon.

The 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.

A Friend Is A Person With Whom I May Be Sincere. Before Him I May Think Aloud.

You Must Elect Your Work; You Shall Take What Your Brains Can, And Drop All The Rest. Only So Can That Amount Of Vital Force Accumulate Which Can Make The Step From Knowing To Doing. No Matter How Much Faculty Of Idle Seeing A Man Has, The Step From Knowing To Doing Is Rarely Taken. It Is A Step Out Of A Chalk Circle Of Imbecility Into Fruitfulness.

If We Will Take The Good We Find, Asking No Questions, We Shall Have Heaping Measures. The Great Gifts Are Not Got By Analysis. Everything Good Is On The Highway. The Middle Region Of Our Being Is The Temperate Zone.

We Must Not Tamper With The Organic Motion Of The Soul.

Men Achieve A Certain Greatness Unawares When Working To Another Aim.

Tis Good-will Makes Intelligence.

How Cunningly Nature Hides Every Wrinkle Of Her Inconceivable Antiquity Under Roses And Violets And Morning Dew!

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.

Friends Are Like Spaghetti, They Should Stick Together. The Only Way To Have A Friend Is To Be One.

When You Have Worn Out Your Shoes, The Strength Of The Show Fiber Has Passed Into Your Body.

In Good Writing, Words Become One With Things.

Being Perfectly Well-dressed Gives A Feeling Of Tranquillity That Religion Is Powerless To Bestow.

All That Adam Had, All That Caesar Could, You Have And Can Do.... Build, Therefore, Your Own World.

Solitude Is Impractical And Yet Society Is Fatal.

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

Say, What Other Metre Is It Than The Meeting Of The Eyes? Nature Poureth Into Nature Through The Channels Of That Feature Riding On The Ray Of Sight, Fleeter Far Than Whirlwinds Go, Or For Service, Or Delight, Hearts To Hearts Their Meaning Show.

In Our Mechanics' Fair, There Must Be Not Only Bridges, Ploughs, Carpenter's Planes, And Baking Troughs, But Also Some Few Finer Instruments,--rain-gauges, Thermometers, And Telescopes; And In Society, Besides Farmers, Sailors, And Weavers, There Must Be A Few Persons Of Purer Fire Kept Specially As Gauges And Meters Of Character; Persons Of A Fine, Detecting Instinct, Who Note The Smallest Accumulations Of Wit And Feeling In The Bystander.

The World Is Filled With The Proverbs And Acts And Winkings Of A Base Prudence, Which Is A Devotion To Matter, As If We Possessedno Other Faculties Than The Palate, The Nose, The Touch, The Eye And Ear; A Prudence Which Adores The Rule Of Three, Which Never Subscribes, Which Never Gives, Which Seldom Lends, And Asks But One Question Of Any Project,--will It Bake Bread?

The Best Conversation Is Rare. Society Seems To Have Agreed To Treat Fictions As Realities, And Realities As Fictions; And The Simple Lover Of Truth, Especially If On Very High Grounds, As A Religious Or Intellectual Seeker, Finds Himself A Stranger And Alien.

No Performance Is Worth Loss Of Geniality. 'tis A Cruel Price We Pay For Certain Fancy Goods Called Fine Arts And Philosophy.

Tart, Cathartic Virtue.

The Hero Is Suffered To Be Himself.

Do Not Be Caught By The Sensational In Nature, As A Coarse Red-faced Sunset, A Garrulous Waterfall, Or A Fifteen Thousand Foot Mountain... Avoid Prettiness - The Word Looks Much Like Pettiness - And There Is But Little Difference Between Them.

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

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