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Wherever Snow Falls, Or Water Flows, Or Birds Fly, Wherever Day And Night Meet In Twilight, Wherever The Blue Heaven Is Hung By Clouds, Or Sown With Stars, Wherever Are Forms With Transparent Boundaries, Wherever Are Outlets Into Celestial Space, Wherever Is Danger, And Awe, And Love, There Is Beauty, Plenteous As Rain, Shed For Thee, And Though Thou Shouldest Walk The World Over, Thou Shalt Not Be Able To Find A Condition Inopportune Or Ignoble.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Wherever Snow Falls, Or

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Wherever Snow Falls, Or Water Flows, Or Birds Fly, Wherever Day And Night Meet In Twilight, Wherever The Blue Heaven Is Hung By Clouds, Or Sown With Stars, Wherever Are Forms With Transparent Boundaries, Wherever Are Outlets Into Celestial Space, Wherever Is Danger, And Awe, And Love, There Is Beauty, Plenteous As Rain, Shed For Thee, And Though Thou Shouldest Walk The World Over, Thou Shalt Not Be Able To Find A Condition Inopportune Or Ignoble.

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The Bulk Of Mankind Believe In Two Gods. They Are Under One Dominion Here In The House, As Friend And Parent, In Social Circles, In Letters, In Art, In Love, In Religion; But In Mechanics, In Dealing With Steam And Climate, In Trade, In Politics, They Think They Come Under Another.

We Fetch Fire And Water, Run About All Day Among The Shops And Markets, And Get Our Clothes And Shoes Made And Mended, And Are Thevictims Of These Details, And Once In A Fortnight We Arrive Perhaps At A Rational Moment.

Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet.

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.

The Lover Of Nature Is He Whose Inward And Outward Senses Are Still Truly Adjusted To Each Other; Who Has Retained The Spirit Of Infancy Even Into The Era Of Manhood. His Intercourse With Heaven And Earth, Becomes Part Of His Daily Food. In The Presence Of Nature, A Wild Delight Runs Through The Man, In Spite Of Real Sorrows.

We Ought To Be Cautious In Taking Even The Best Ascertained Opinions And Practices Of The Primitive Church For Our Own. If It Could Be Satisfactorily Shown That They Esteemed It Authorized And Transmitted Forever, That Does Not Settle The Question For Us. We Know How Inveterately They Were Attached To Their Jewish Prejudices, And How Often Even The Influence Of Christ Failed To Enlarge Their Views. On Every Other Subject Succeeding Times Have Learned To Form A Judgement More In Accordance With The Spirit Of Christianity Than Was The Practice Of The Early Ages.

Nature May Be As Selfishly Studied As Trade. Astronomy To The Selfish Becomes Astrology; Psychology, Mesmerism (with Intent To Show Where Aour Spoons Are Gone); And Anatomy And Physiology Become Phrenology And Palmistry.

Honor And Fortune Exist For Him Who Always Recognizes The Neighborhood Of The Great, Always Feels Himself In The Presence Of High Causes.

If You Would Serve Your Brother It Is Fit For You To Serve Him, Do Not Take Back Your Words When You Find That Prudent People Do Not Commend You. Be True To Your Own Act, And Congratulate Yourself If You Have Done Something Strange And Extravagant And Broken The Monotony Of A Decorous Age.

Thus Inevitably Does The Universe Wear Our Color, And Every Object Fall Successively Into The Subject Itself. The Subject Exists, The Subject Enlarges; All Things Sooner Or Later Fall Into Place. As I Am, So I See; Use What Language We Will, We Can Never Say Anything But What We Are.

America Is A Country Of Young Men.

The Use Of Literature Is To Afford Us A Platform Whence We May Command A View Of Our Present Life, A Purchase By Which We May Move It....we See Literature Best From The Midst Of Wild Nature, Or From The Din Of Affairs, Or From A High Religion. The Field Cannot Be Well Seen From Within The Field.

When He Has Seen, That It Is Not His, Nor Any Man's, But It Is The Soul Which Made The World, And That It Is All Accessible To Him, He Will Know That He, As Its Minister, May Rightfully Hold All Things Subordinate And Answerable To It.

There Are Many Faculties In Man, Each Of Which Takes Its Turn Of Activity, And That Faculty Which Is Paramount In Any Period And Exerts Itself Through The Strongest Nation, Determines The Civility Of That Age: And Each Age Thinks Its Own The Perfection Of Reason.

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

It Is Wonderful How Soon A Piano Gets Into A Log-hut On The Frontier. You Would Think They Found It Under A Pine-stump. With It Comes A Latin Grammar, And One Of Those Tow-head Boys Has Written A Hymn On Sunday. Now Let Colleges, Now Let Senates Take Heed! For Here Is One Who, Opening These Fine Tastes On The Basis Of The Pioneer's Iron Constitution, Will Gather All Their Laurels In His Strong Hands.

The Sky Is The Ultimate Art Gallery Just Above Us.

The Advantage In Education Is Always With Those Children Who Slip Up Into Life Without Being Objects Of Notice.

Make Youself Necessary To Someone.

Let Us Make Education Brave And Preventive. Politics Is An Afterwork, A Poor Patching. We Are Always A Little Late... We Shall One Day Learn To Supercede Politics By Education... We Must Begin Higher Up, Namely In Education.

The Soul Contains The Event That Shall Befall It, For The Event Is Only The Actualization Of Its Thoughts; And What We Pray To Ourselves For Is Always Granted.

And I Myself, In Rome, Heard It Said Openly In The Streets, "if There Is A Hell, Then Rome Is Built On It." Martin Luther, Against The Roman Papacy, An Institution Of The Devil London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions.

Will And Determination

Expediency Of Literature, Reason Of Literature, Lawfulness Of Writing Down A Thought, Is Questioned; Much Is To Say On Both Sides,and, While The Fight Waxes Hot, Thou, Dearest Scholar, Stick To Thy Foolish Task, Add A Line Every Hour, And Between Whiles Add A Line.

I Honor Health As The First Muse.

The Moral Sense Reappears Today With The Same Morning Newness That Has Been From Of Old The Fountain Of Beauty And Strength. You Say There Is No Religion Now. 'tis Like Saying In Rainy Weather, There Is No Sun, When At That Moment We Are Witnessing One Of Its Superlative Effects.

A Man's Library Is A Sort Of Harem.

Instead Of Making Christianity A Vehicle Of Truth, You Make Truth Only A Horse For Christianity.

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

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

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.

Good Criticism Is Very Rare And Always Precious.

The Worst Feature Of This Double Consciousness Is, That The Two Lives, Of The Understanding And Of The Soul, Which We Lead, Reallyshow Very Little Relation To Each Other; Never Meet And Measure Each Other: One Prevails Now, All Buzz And Din; And The Other Prevails Then, All Infinitude And Paradise; And, With The Progress Of Life, The Two Discover No Greater Disposition To Reconcile Themselves.

There Is No Event Greater In Life Than The Appearance Of New Persons About Our Hearth, Except It Be The Progress Of The Characterwhich Draws Them.

The Things We Now Esteem Fixed Shall, One By One, Detach Themselves, Like Ripe Fruit, From Our Experience, And Fall. The Wind Shall Blow Them None Knows Whither.

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

How Can We Speak Of The Action Of The Mind Under Any Divisions, As Of Its Knowledge, Of Its Ethics, Of Its Works, And So Forth, Since It Melts Will Into Perception, Knowledge Into Act? Each Becomes The Other. Itself Alone Is.

Power Educates The Potentate.

The South-wind Brings Life, Sunshine And Desire, And On Every Mount And Meadow Breathes Aromatic Fire; But Over The Dead He Has No Power, The Lost, The Lost, He Cannot Restore; And, Looking Over The Hills, I Mourn The Darling Who Shall Not Return.

Perpetual Modernness Is The Measure Of Merit, In Every Work Of Art; Since The Author Of It Was Not Misled By Anything Short- Livedor Local, But Abode By Real And Abiding Traits.

'well,' Said Red Jacket [to Someone Complaining That He Had Not Enough Time], 'i Suppose You Have All There Is.'

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

Life Is A Search After Power.

Do You Love Me? Means At Last Do You See The Same Truth I See? If You Do, We Are Happy Together; But When Presently One Of Us Passes Into The Perception Of A New Truth, We Are Divorced And The Force Of All Nature Cannot Hold Us To Each Other.

Society, To Be Sure, Does Not Like This Very Well; It Saith, Whoso Goes To Walk Alone, Accuses The Whole World; He Declares All To Be Unfit To Be His Companions; It Is Very Uncivil, Nay, Insulting; Society Will Retaliate.

Make Your Own Bible. Select And Collect All The Words And Sentences That In All Your Readings Have Been To You Like The Blast Of A Trumpet.

Commonsense Is The Wick Of The Candle.

The Efforts Which We Make To Escape From Our Destiny Only Serve To Lead Us Into It.

When The Literary Class Betray A Destitution Of Faith, It Is Not Strange That Society Should Be Disheartened And Sensualized By Unbelief.

Let Us Take Our Bloated Nothingness Out Of The Path Of The Divine Circuits.

Not A Ray Is Dimmed, Not An Atom Worn; Nature's Oldest Force Is As Good As New.

The Borrower Runs In His Own Debt.

Plato Is Philosophy, And Philosophy, Plato,--at Once The Glory And The Shame Of Mankind, Since Neither Saxon Nor Roman Have Availed To Add Any Idea To His Categories.

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

Cultivate The Habit Of Being Grateful For Every Good Thing That Comes To You, And To Give Thanks Continuously. And Because All Things Have Contributed To Your Advancement, You Should Include All Things In Your Gratitude.

A Mind Might Ponder Its Thought For An Epoch, And Not Gain So Much Self-knowledge As The Passion Of Love Shall Teach In A Day.

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

We Teach Boys To Be Such Men As We Are. We Do Not Teach Them To Aspire To Be All They Can. We Do Not Give Them A Training As If Webelieved In Their Noble Nature. We Scarce Educate Their Bodies. We Do Not Train The Eye And The Hand. We Exercise Their Understandings To The Apprehension And Comparison Of Some Facts, To A Skill In Numbers, In Words; We Aim To Make Accountants, Attorneys, Engineers; But Not To Make Able, Earnest, Great- Hearted Men.

The First Wealth Is Health.

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken.

You Cannot Institute, Without Peril Of Charlatanism.

No Change Of Circumstances Can Repair A Defect Of Character.

Men Have Looked Away From Themselves And At Things So Long That They Have Come To Esteem The Religious, Learned And Civil Institutions As Guards Of Property, And They Deprecate Assaults On These, Because They Feel Them To Be Assaults On Property. They Measure Their Esteem Of Each Other By What Each Has, And Not By What Each Is.

An Actually Existing Fly Is More Important Than A Possibly Existing Angel.

When Half-gods Go The Gods Arrive.

When A Man Lives With God, His Voice Shall Be As Sweet As The Murmur Of The Brook And Rustle Of The Corn.

Man Is Physical As Well As Metaphysical, A Thing Of Shreds And Patches, Borrowed Unequally From Good And Bad Ancestors, And A Misfit From The Start.

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

A Person's Life Is Limited But Serving The People Is Limitless. I Want To Devote My Limited Life To Serving The People Limitlessly.

Go Face The Fire At Sea, Or The Cholera In Your Friend's House, Or The Burglar In Your Own, Or What Danger Lies In The Way Of Duty, Knowing You Are Guarded By The Cherubim Of Destiny. If You Believe In Fate To Your Harm, Believe It, At Least, For Your Good.

It Is Easy To Carp At Colleges, And The College, If He Will Wait For It, Will Have Its Own Turn. Genius Exists There Also, But Will Not Answer A Call Of A Committee Of The House Of Commons. It Is Rare, Precious, Eccentric, And Darkling.

New Arts Destroy The Old.

Moller, In His Essay On Architecture, Taught That The Building Which Was Fitted Accurately To Answer Its End Would Turn Out To Be Beautiful, Though Beauty Had Not Been Intended. I Find The Like Unity In Human Structures Rather Virulent And Pervasive.

Our Best History Is Still Poetry.

A Man In A Cave Or In A Camp, A Nomad, Will Die With No More Estate Than The Wolf Or The Horse Leaves.

Cunning Is Strength Withheld.

Some Will Always Be Above Others.

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

There Are Two Laws Discretenot Reconciled,law For Man, And Law For Thing.

A Woman's Strength Is The Unresistible Might Of Weakness.

My Doom And My Strength Is To Be Solitary.

An English Family Consists Of A Few Persons, Who, From Youth To Age, Are Found Revolving Within A Few Feet Of Each Other, As If Tied By Some Invisible Ligature, Tense As That Cartilage Which We Have Seen Attaching The Two Siamese.

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.

The Idealism Of Berkeley Is Only A Crude Statement Of The Idealism Of Jesus, And That Again Is A Crude Statement Of The Fact Thatall Nature Is The Rapid Efflux Of Goodness Executing And Organizing Itself.

Self-trust Is The First Secret Of Success.

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.

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

That Which We Call Sin In Others Is Experiment For Us.

When We Are Exalted By Ideas, We Do Not Owe This To Plato, But To The Idea, To Which Also Plato Was Debtor.

Happy Is The Hearing Man; Unhappy The Speaking Man.

The Creation Of A Thousand Forests Is In One Acorn.

The Restraining Grace Of Common Sense Is The Mark Of All Valid Minds.

Most Of The Shadows Of This Life Are Caused By Standing In One's Own Sunshine.

Rude Poets Of The Tavern Hearth, Squandering Your Unquoted Mirth, Which Keeps The Ground, And Never Soars, While Jake Retorts, And Reuben Roars; Tough And Screaming, As Birch-bark, Goes Like Bullet To Its Mark; While The Solid Curse And Jeer Never Balk The Waiting Ear.

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

Every Artist Was First An Amateur.

A Hero Is A Man Who Is Afraid To Run Away.

In Dealing With The State, We Ought To Remember That Its Institutions Are Not Aboriginal, Though They Existed Before We Were Born; That They Are Not Superior To The Citizen; That Every One Of Them Was Once The Act Of A Single Man; Every Law And Usage Was A Man's Expedient To Meet A Particular Case; That They All Are Imitable, All Alterable; We May Make As Good; We May Make Better.

Every Man Contemplates An Angel In His Future Self.

We Dare Not Trust Our Wit For Making Our House Pleasant To Our Friend, So We Buy Ice Cream.

Things Refuse To Be Mismanaged For Long.

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.

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.

Vivacity, Leadership, Must Be Had, And We Are Not Allowed To Be Nice In Choosing. We Must Fetch The Pump With Dirty Water, If Clean Cannot Be Had.

Go Out Of The House To See The Moon, And 't Is Mere Tinsel; It Will Not Please As When Its Light Shines Upon Your Necessary Journey. The Beauty That Shimmers In The Yellow Afternoons Of October, Who Could Ever Clutch It? Go Forth To Find It, And It Is Gone: 't Is Only A Mirage As You Look From The Windows Of Diligence.

The Whole World Is An Omen And A Sign. Why Look So Wistfully In A Corner? Man Is The Image Of God. Why Run After A Ghost Or A Dream? The Voice Of Divination Resounds Everywhere And Runs To Waste Unheard, Unregarded, As The Mountains Echo With The Bleatings Of Cattle.

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.

O Friend, Never Strike Sail To A Fear! Come Into Port Greatly, Or Sail With God The Seas.

Spurious Prudence, Making The Senses Final, Is The God Of Sots And Cowards, And Is The Subject Of All Comedy. It Is Nature's Joke, And Therefore Literature's. True Prudence Limits This Sensualism By Admitting The Knowledge Of An Internal And Real World.

Great Men Exist That There Might Be Greater Men.

We Do What We Must, And Call It By The Best Names.

The Wise Through Excess Of Wisdom Is Made A Fool.

The Possibility Of Interpretation Lies In The Identity Of The Observer With The Observed. Each Material Thing Has Its Celestial Side; Has Its Translation, Through Humanity, Into The Spiritual And Necessary Sphere, Where It Plays A Part As Indestructible As Any Other.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy, But In The State, And In The Schools, It Is Indispensable To Resist The Consolidation Ofall Men Into A Few Men.

Dreams And Beasts Are Two Keys By Which We Find Out The Keys Of Our Own Nature.

If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being.

The Sciences, Even The Best,-mathematics And Astronomy,-are Like Sportsmen, Who Seize Whatever Prey Offers, Even Without Being Able To Make Any Use Of It.

A Skilful Man Reads His Dreams For His Selfknowledge; Yet Not The Details, But The Quality.

Justice Satisfies Everybody, And Justice Alone.

Let The Soul Be Assured That Somewhere In The Universe It Should Rejoin Its Friend, And It Would Be Content And Cheerful Alone For A Thousand Years.

Two Touch The String, The Harp Is Dumb.

A Man Must Thank His Defects, And Stand In Some Terror Of His Talents.

My Companion Assumes To Know My Mood And Habit Of Thought, And We Go On From Explanation To Explanation, Until All Is Said That Words Can, And We Leave Matters Just As They Were At First, Because Of That Vicious Assumption.

The World Still Wants Its Poet-priest, A Reconciler, Who Shall Not Trifle With Shakspeare The Player, Nor Shall Grope In Graves With Swedenborg The Mourner; But Who Shall See, Speak, And Act, With Equal Inspiration. For Knowledge Will Brighten The Sunshine; Right Is More Beautiful Than Private Affection; And Love Is Compatible With Universal Wisdom.

This Is My Wish For You: Comfort On Difficult Days, Smiles When Sadness Intrudes, Rainbows To Follow The Clouds, Laughter To Kiss Your Lips, Sunsets To Warm Your Heart, Hugs When Spirits Sag, Beauty For Your Eyes To See, Friendships To Brighten Your Being, Faith So That You Can Believe, Confidence For When You Doubt, Courage To Know Yourself, Patience To Accept The Truth, Love To Complete Your Life.

I Cannot Forgive A Scholar His Homeless Despondency.

Every Reform Was Once A Private Opinion, And When It Shall Be A Private Opinion Again, It Will Solve The Problem Of The Age.

The Solid, Solid Universe Is Pervious To Love; With Bandaged Eyes He Never Errs, Around, Below, Above. His Blinding Light He Flingeth White On God's And Satan's Brood, And Reconciles By Mystic Wiles The Evil And The Good.

Our Opinions Of The World, Are Confessions Of Character.

What Is Addressed To Us For Contemplation Does Not Threaten Us, But Makes Us Intellectual Beings.

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.

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.

Man Begins Life Helpless. The Babe Is In Paroxysms Of Fear The Moment Its Nurse Leaves It Alone, And It Comes So Slowly To Any Power Of Self-protection That Mothers Say The Salvation Of The Life And Health Of A Young Child Is A Perpetual Miracle.

I Think No Virtue Goes With Size;the Reason Of All Cowardiceis, That Men Are Overgrown,and, To Be Valiant, Must Come Downto The Titmouse Dimension.

The World Is Nothing, The Man Is All; In Yourself Is The Law Of All Nature, And You Know Not Yet How A Globule Of Sap Ascends; In Yourself Slumbers The Whole Of Reason; It Is For You To Know All, It Is For You To Dare All.

An Empire Is An Immense Egotism.

Without A Rich Heart, Wealth Is An Ugly Beggar.

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.

A Man Must Ride Alternately On The Horses Of His Private And His Public Nature.

Surely Nobody Would Be A Charlatan, Who Could Afford To Be Sincere.

A Man Makes Inferiors His Superiors By Heat; Self Control Is The Rule. Anger Is An Uncontrollable Feeling That Betrays What You Are When You Are Not Yourself. Anger Is That Powerful Internal Force That Blows Out The Light Of Reason. Know This To Be The Enemy: It Is Anger, Born Of Desire.

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

Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

Transcendentalism

Whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist.

Being Different

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

The Young Men Were Born With Knives In Their Brain, A Tendency To Introversion, Self-dissection, Anatomizing Of Motives.

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.

All Poets Have Signalized Their Consciousness Of Rare Moments When They Were Superior To Themselves, -when A Light, A Freedom, A Power Came To Them Which Lifted Them To Performances Far Better Than They Could Reach At Other Times.

Virtue Runs Before The Muse, And Defies Her Skill; She Is Rapt And Doth Refuse To Wait A Painter's Will.

In A Cabinet Of Natural History, We Become Sensible Of A Certain Occult Recognition And Sympathy In Regard To The Most Unwieldy And Eccentric Forms Of Beast, Fish, And Insect.

Intellect Annuls Fate. So Far As A Man Thinks He Is Free.

Every Thought Is Public, Every Nook Is Wide; Thy Gossips Spread Each Whisper, And The Gods From Side To Side.

Immitation Is Suicide.

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

It Is Doubtless A Vice To Turn One's Eyes Inward Too Much, But I Am My Own Comedy And Tragedy.

The Constructive Intellect [genius] Produces Thoughts, Sentences, Poems, Plans, Designs, Systems. It Is The Generation Of The Mind, The Marriage Of Thought With Nature.

Criticism Is Infested With The Cant Of Materialism, Which Assumes That Manual Skill And Activity Is The First Merit Of All Men, And Disparages Such As Say And Do Not, Overlooking The Fact, That Some Men, Namely, Poets, Are Natural Sayers, Sent Into The World To The End Of Expression, And Confounds Them With Those Whose Province Is Action, But Who Quit To Imitate The Sayers.

The Spirit Of The World, The Great Calm Presence Of The Creator, Comes Not Forth To The Sorceries Of Opium Or Of Wine.

We Seek Our Friend Not Sacredly, But With An Adulterate Passion Which Would Appropriate Him To Ourselves.

If We Walk In The Woods, We Must Feed Mosquitoes.

The Laws Of Each Are Convertible Into The Laws Of Any Other.

We Are By Nature Observers, And Thereby Learners. That Is Our Permanent State.

Criticism Should Not Be Querulous And Wasting, All Knife And Root-puller, But Guiding, Instructive, Inspiring, A South Wind, Not An East Wind.

All Are Needed By Each One; Nothing Is Fair Or Good Alone.

Power Ceases In The Instant Of Repose; It Resides In The Moment Of Transition From A Past To A New State, In The Shooting Of The Gulf, In The Darting To An Aim.

Democracy Becomes A Government Of Bullies Tempered By Editors.

Democracies Have

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

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

Men Are Like Geneva Watches With Crystal Faces, Which Expose The Whole Movement.

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.

A Sympathetic Person Is Placed In The Dilemma Of A Swimmer Among Drowning Men, Who All Catch At Him, And If He Gives So Much As A Leg Or A Finger, They Will Drown Him.

To Be Great, You Must Be Misunderstood

New York Is A Sucked Orange. All Conversation Is At An End, When We Have Discharged Ourselves Of A Dozen Personalities, Domestic Or Imported, Which Make Up Our American Existence.

Nature And Books Belong To The Eyes That See Them. It Depends On The Mood Of The Man, Whether He Shall See The Sunset Or The Fine Poem. There Are Always Sunsets, And There Is Always Genius; But Only A Few Hours So Serene That We Can Relish Nature Or Criticism. The More Or Less Depends On Structure Or Temperament. Temperament Is The Iron Wire On Which The Beads Are Strung. Of What Use Is Fortune Or Talent To A Cold And Defective Store?

Our Strength Grows Out Of Our Weakness.

Times Of Heroism Are Generally Times Of Terror, But The Day Never Shines In Which This Element May Not Work.

Religionists Are Clinging To Little, Positive, Verbal, Formal Versions Of The Moral Law... While The Laws Of The Law, The Great Circling Truths Whose Only Adequate Symbol Is The Material Laws, The Astronomy Etc. Are All Unobserved, And Sneered At When Spoken Of.

This One Fact The World Hates; That The Soul Becomes; For That Forever Degrades The Past, Turns All Riches To Poverty, All Reputation To A Shame, Confounds The Saint With The Rogue, Shoves Jesus And Judas Equally Aside.

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

We Are The Prisoners Of Ideas.

If We Suddenly Plant Our Foot, And Say, - I Will Neither Eat Nor Drink Nor Wear Nor Touch Any Food Or Fabric Which I Do Not Know To Be Innocent, Or Deal With Any Person Whose Whole Manner Of Life Is Not Clear And Rational, We Shall Stand Still. Whose Is So? Not Mine; Not Thine; Not His. But I Think We Must Clear Ourselves Each One By The Interrogation, Whether We Have Earned Our Bread To-day By The Hearty Contribution Of Our Energies To The Common Benefit? And We Must Not Cease To Tend To The Correction Of These Flagrant Wrongs, By Laying One Stone Aright Every Day.

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

Men Do What Is Called A Good Action, As Some Piece Of Courage Or Charity, Much As They Would Pay A Fine In Expiation Of Daily Non-appearance On Parade. Their Works Are Done As An Apology Or Extenuation Of Their Living In The World. I Do Not Wish To Expiate, But To Live. My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life.

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men. Every Man Is An Inlet To The Same And To All Of The Same. He That Is Once Admitted To The Right Of Reason Is Made A Freeman Of The Whole Estate. What Plato Has Thought, He May Think; What A Saint Has Felt, He May Feel; What At Any Time Has Befallen Any Man, He Can Understand. Who Hath Access To This Universal Mind Is A Party To All That Is Or Can Be Done, For This Is The Only And Sovereign Agent

The Key To Every Man Is His Thought.

Whoever Fights, Whoever Falls, Justice Conquers Evermore

Frankness Invites Frankness.

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

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

Be Silly. Be Honest. Be Kind.

Accuracy Is Essential To Beauty.

It Is Hard To Mesmerize Ourselves, To Whip Our Own Top; But Through Sympathy We Are Capable Of Energy And Endurance. Concert Fires People To A Certain Fury Of Performance They Can Rarely Reach Alone.

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.

Every Known Fact In Natural Science Was Divined By The Presentiment Of Somebody, Before It Was Actually Verified.

Native American

A New Person Is To Me A Great Event, And Hinders Me From Sleep. I Have Often Had Fine Fancies About Persons Which Have Given Me Delicious Hours; But The Joy Ends In The Day; It Yields No Fruit.

Not In Nature But In Man Is All The Beauty And Worth He Sees. The World Is Very Empty, And Is Indebted To This Gilding, Exalting Soul For All Its Pride.

We Must Learn The Language Of Facts. The Most Wonderful Inspirations Die With Their Subject, If He Has No Hand To Paint Them To The Senses.

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

Ability Without Honor Has No Value.

The Condition Which High Friendship Demands Is Ability To Do Without It.

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Daniel Barenboim

Victor Davis Hanson

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