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Without Ambition One Starts Nothing. Without Work One Finishes Nothing. The Prize Will Not Be Sent To You. You Have To Win It. The Man Who Knows How Will Always Have A Job. The Man Who Also Knows Why Will Always Be His Boss. As To Methods There May Be A Million And Then Some, But Principles Are Few. The Man Who Grasps Principles Can Successfully Select His Own Methods. The Man Who Tries Methods, Ignoring Principles, Is Sure To Have Trouble.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Without Ambition One Starts

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Without Ambition One Starts Nothing. Without Work One Finishes Nothing. The Prize Will Not Be Sent To You. You Have To Win It. The Man Who Knows How Will Always Have A Job. The Man Who Also Knows Why Will Always Be His Boss. As To Methods There May Be A Million And Then Some, But Principles Are Few. The Man Who Grasps Principles Can Successfully Select His Own Methods. The Man Who Tries Methods, Ignoring Principles, Is Sure To Have Trouble.

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

Our Opinions Of The World, Are Confessions Of Character.

I Know And See Too Well, When Not Voluntarily Blind, The Speedy Limits Opersons Called High And Worthy.

I Hate This Shallow Americanism Which Hopes To Get Rich By Credit, To Get Knowledge By Raps On Midnight Tables, To Learn The Economy Of The Mind By Phrenology, Or Skill Without Study, Or Mastery Without Apprenticeship.

But Speak The Truth, And All Nature And All Spirits Help You With Unexpected Furtherance. Speak The Truth, And All Things Alive Orbrute Are Vouchers, And The Very Roots Of The Grass Underground There Do Seem To Stir And Move To Bear You Witness.

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

I Feel Some Unwillingness To Quit The Remembrance Of The Past. With All The Hope Of The New I Feel That We Are Leaving The Old.

There Was Never A Man Born So Wise Or Good, But One Or More Companions Came Into The World With Him, Who Delight In His Faculty, And Report It. I Cannot See Without Awe, That No Man Thinks Alone And No Man Acts Alone, But The Divine Assessors Who Came Up With Him Into Life,--now Under One Disguise, Now Under Another,--like A Police In Citizen's Clothes, Walk With Him, Step For Step, Through All Kingdoms Of Time.

Finish Each 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 And With Too High A Spirit To Be Encumbered With Your Old Nonsense.

Those Who Listened To Lord Chatham Felt That There Was Something Finer In The Man, Than Anything Which He Said.

Self Confidence

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.

All Is A Riddle, And The Key To A Riddle...is Another Riddle.

Health Is The Condition Of Wisdom, And The Sign Is Cheerfulness, - An Open And Noble Temper.

The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance. Necessity Is The Law Of All Who Are Not Self-possessed.

Any Relation To The Land, The Habit Of Tilling It, Or Mining It, Or Even Hunting On It, Generates The Feeling Of Patriotism. He Who Keeps Shop On It, Or He Who Merely Uses It As A Support To His Desk And Ledger, Or To His Manufactory, Values It Less.

Whilst We Want Cities As The Centres Where The Best Things Are Found, Cities Degrade Us By Magnifying Trifles.

A Garden Is Like Those Pernicious Machineries Which Catch A Man's Coat-skirt Or His Hand, And Draw In His Arm, His Leg , And His Whole Body To Irresistible Destruction.

Two May Talk And One May Hear, But Three Cannot Take Part In A Conversation Of The Most Sincere And Searching Sort.

Skepticism Is Unbelief In Cause And Effect. A Man Does Not See, That, As He Eats, So He Thinks: As He Deals, So He Is, And So He Appears; He Does Not See That His Son Is The Son Of His Thoughts And Of His Actions; That Fortunes Are Not Exceptions But Fruits; That Relation And Connection Are Not Somewhere And Sometimes, But Everywhere And Always; No Miscellany, No Exemption, No Anomaly,--but Method, And An Even Web; And What Comes Out, That Was Put In.

God Evidently Does Not Intend Us All To Be Rich, Or Powerful Or Great, But He Does Intend Us All To Be Friends.

In Youth, We Clothe Ourselves With Rainbows, And Go As Brave As The Zodiac.

Every Advantage Has Its Tax.

If A Man Sits Down To Think, He Is Immediately Asked If He Has A Headache.

Don't Be A Cynic And Disconsolate Preacher. Don't Bewail And Moan. Omit The Negative Propositions. Challenge Us With Incessant Affirmatives.

Two Touch The String, The Harp Is Dumb.

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.

Justice Satisfies Everybody, And Justice Alone.

I Will Do Strongly Before The Sun And Moon Whatever Inly Rejoices Me And The Heart Apoints.

That Which We Persist In Doing Becomes Easier To Do, Not That The Nature Of The Thing Has Changed But That Our Power To Do Has Increased.

How Beautiful To Have The Church Always Open, So That Every Tired Wayfaring Man May Come In And Be Soothed By All That Art Can Suggest Of A Better World When He Is Weary With This.

Only That Is Poetry Which Cleanses And Mans Me.

Friendship Is An Order Of Nobility; From Its Revelations We Come More Worthily Into Nature.

Beauty Is The Pilot Of The Young Soul.

Nothing Is Dead: Men Feign Themselves Dead, And Endure Mock Funerals And Mournful Obituaries, And There They Stand Looking Out Ofthe Window, Sound And Well, In Some New And Strange Disguise.

Beauty Through My Senses Stole; I Yielded Myself To The Perfect Whole.

But The Wise Know That Foolish Legislation Is A Rope Of Sand, Which Perishes In The Twisting; That The State Must Follow, And Notlead The Character And Progress Of The Citizen; The Strongest Usurper Is Quickly Got Rid Of; And They Only Who Build On Ideas, Build For Eternity; And That The Form Of Government Which Prevails, Is The Expression Of What Cultivation Exists In The Population Which Permits It.

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

We Boil At Different Degrees.

Being Different

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.

Pride Eradicates All Vices But Itself.

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.

Wherever There Is Failure, There Is Some Giddiness, Some Superstition About Luck, Some Step Omitted, Which, Nature Never Pardons.

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.

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

Great Is Paint; Nay, God Is The Painter; And We Rightly Accuse The Critic Who Destroys Too Many Illusions. Society Does Not Love Its Unmaskers.

Taking To Pieces Is The Trade Of Those Who Cannot Construct.

The Greatest Delight The Fields And Woods Minister Is The Suggestion Of An Occult Relation Between Man And The Vegetable. I Am Not Alone And Unacknowledged. They Nod To Me And I To Them.

But Harder Still It Has Proved To Resist And Rule The Dragon Money, With His Paper Wings. Chancellors And Boards Of Trade, Pitt, Peel, And Bobinson, And Their Parliaments, And Their Whole Generation, Adopted False Principles, And Went To Their Graves In The Belief That They Were Enriching The Country Which They Were Impoverishing.

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.

Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.

War Disorganizes, But It Is To Reorganize.

When Summer Opens, I See How Fast It Matures, And Fear It Will Be Short; But After The Heats Of July And August, I Am Reconciled, Like One Who Has Had His Swing, To The Cool Of Autumn.

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

The Worthless And Offensive Members Of Society, Whose Existence Is A Social Pest, Invariably Think Themselves The Most Ill-used People Alive, And Never Get Over Their Astonishment At The Ingratitude And Selfishness Of Their Contemporaries.

It Was High Counsel That I Once Heard Given To A Young Person, 'always Do What You Are Afraid To Do.'

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.

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

People Do Not Seem To Realize That Their Opinion Of The World Is Also A Confession Of Character.

It Is Never Too Late To Do Right.

Ah, If The Rich Were Rich As The Poor Fancy Riches.

We Never Touch But At Points.

All Mankind Love A Lover.

For All Our Penny-wisdom, For All Our Soul-destroying Slavery To Habit, It Is Not To Be Doubted That All Men Have Sublime Thoughts; That All Men Value The Few Real Hours Of Life; They Love To Be Heard; They Love To Be Caught Up Into The Vision Of Principles. We Mark With Light In The Memory The Few Interviews We Have Had, In The Dreary Years Of Routine And Of Sin, With Souls That Made Our Souls Wiser; That Spoke What We Thought; That Told Us What We Knew; That Gave Us Leave To Be What We Only Were.

The Imitator Dooms Himself To Hopeless Mediocrity.

Nature Hates Monopolies And Exceptions.

Knowledge, Virtue, Power Are The Victories Of Man Over His Necessities, His March To The Dominion Of The World.

We All Wish To Be Of Importance In One Way Or Another. The Child Coughs With Might And Main, Since It Has No Other Claim On The Company.

What Art Can Paint Or Gild Any Object In After Life With The Glow Which Nature Gives To The First Baubles Of Childhood? St. Peter's Cannot Have The Magical Power Over Us That The Red And Gold Covers Of Our First Picture-book Possessed.

Fear, Craft And Avarice Cannot Rear A State.

Friendship Should Be Surrounded With Ceremonies And Respects, And Not Crushed Into Corners.

But Dare Rather To Quit The Platform, Plunge Into The Sublime Seas, Dive Deep, & Swim Far, So Shall You Come Back With Self-respect, With New Power, With An Advanced Experience, That Shall Explain & Overlook The Old. Trust Your Emotion.

Fate Is Unpenetrated Causes.

We Live Ruins Amid Ruins.

Everywhere I Am Hindered Of Meeting God In My Brother, Because He Has Shut His Own Temple Doors And Recites Fables Merely Of His Brother's, Or His Brother's Brother's God.

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.

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 God Who Made New Hampshire Taunted The Lofty Land With Little Men.

Perhaps Love Is Only The Highest Symbol Of Friendship, As All Other Things Seem Symbols Of Love.

Words Are Finite Organs Of The Infinite Mind. They Cannot Cover The Dimensions Of What Is In Truth. They Break, Chop, And Impoverish It.

When A Man Speaks The Truth In The Spirit Of Truth, His Eye Is As Clear As The Heavens. When He Has Base Ends, And Speaks Falsely, The Eye Is Muddy, And Sometimes Asquint.

Sleep Takes Off The Costume Of Circumstance, Arms Us With Terrible Freedom, So That Every Will Rushes To Deed. A Skillful Man Reads His Dreams For His Self-knowledge; Yet Not The Details, But The Quality. What Part Does He Play In Them - A Cheerful, Manly Part, Or A Poor, Drivelling Part? However Monstrous And Grotesque Their Apparitions, They Have A Substantial Truth.

Whoever Is Open, Loyal, True; Of Humane And Affable Demeanour; Honourable Himself, And In His Judgement Of Others; Faithful To His Word As To Law, And Faithful Alike To God And Man....such A Man Is A True Gentleman.

Another Success Is The Post-office, With Its Educating Energy Augmented By Cheapness And Guarded By A Certain Religious Sentimentin Mankind; So That The Power Of A Wafer Or A Drop Of Wax Or Gluten To Guard A Letter, As It Flies Over Sea Over Land And Comes To Its Address As If A Battalion Of Artillery Brought It, I Look Upon As A Fine Meter Of Civilization.

Common Sense Is As Rare As Genius.

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

If You Would Not Be Known To Do Anything, Never Do It.

It Seems As If The Day Was Not Wholly Profane In Which We Have Given Heed To Some Natural Object.

The Passages Of Shakespeare That We Most Prize Were Never Quoted Until Within This Century.

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]

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.

If Thought Makes Free, So Does The Moral Sentiment. The Mixtures Of Spiritual Chemistry Refuse To Be Analyzed.

We Say Love Is Blind, And The Figure Of Cupid Is Drawn With A Bandage Around His Eyes. Blind - Yes, Because He Does Not See What He Does Not Like; But The Sharpest-sighted Hunter In The Universe Is Love For Finding What He Seeks, And Only That.

Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

Transcendentalism

What The Tender And Poetic Youth Dreams To-day, And Conjures Up With Inarticulate Speech, Is To-morrow The Vociferated Result Of Public Opinion, And The Day After Is The Character Of Nations.

Trust Your Instinct To The End, Though You Can Render No Reason.

Heaven Often Protects Valuable Souls Charged With Great Secrets, Great Ideas, By Long Shutting Them Up With Their Own Thoughts.

Life Only Avails, Not The Having Lived.

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.

Many Might Go To Heaven With Half The Labor They Go To Hell.

A Man Is A Hero, Not Because He Is Braver Than Anyone Else, But Because He Is Brave For 10 Minutes Longer.

We Have Feudal Governments In A Commercial Age. It Would Be But An Easy Extension Of Our Commercial System, To Pay A Private Emperor A Fee For Services, As We Pay An Architect, An Engineer, Or A Lawyer. If Any Man Has Talent For Righting Wrong, For Administering Difficult Affairs, For Counselling Poor Farmers How To Turn Their Estates To Good Husbandry, For Combining A Hundred Private Enterprises To A General Benefit, Let Him In The County- Town, Or In Court-street, Put Up His Sign-board, Mr. Smith, Governor, Mr. Johnson, Working King.

There Will Be An Agreement In Whatever Variety Of Actions, So They Be Each Honest And Natural In Their Hour. For Of One Will, The Actions Will Be Harmonious, However Unlike They Seem. These Varieties Are Lost Sight Of At A Little Distance, At A Little Height Of Thought. One Tendency Unites Them All. The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficient Distance, And It Straightens Itself To The Average Tendency.

When It Comes To Divide An Estate, The Politest Men Quarrel.

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

The First And Last Lesson Of Religion Is, "the Things That Are Seen, Are Temporal; The Things That Are Unseen, Are Eternal." It Puts An Affront Upon Nature.

"do Not Call Yourself An "artist-photographer" And Make "artist-painters" And "artist-sculptors" Laugh; Call Yourself A Photographer And Wait For Artists To Call You Brother."

There Are Men Too Superior To Be Seen Except By A Few, As There Are Notes Too High For The Scale Of Most Ears.

The Good Judge Is Not He Who Does Hair-splitting Justice To Every Allegation, But Who, Aiming At Substantial Justice, Rules Something Intelligible Of The Guidance Of Suitors.

Grow Angry Slowly - There's Plenty Of Time.

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.

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

All History Is The Decline Of War, Though The Slow Decline. All That Society Has Yet Gained Is Mitigation; The Doctrine Of The Right Of War Still Remains.

There Is Creative Reading As Well As Creative Writing.

It Is Curious That Christianity, Which Is Idealism, Is Sturdily Defended By The Brokers, And Steadily Attacked By The Idealists.

Religious Literature Has Eminent Examples, And If We Run Over Our Private List Of Poets, Critics, Philanthropists And Philosophers, We Shall Find Them Infected With This Dropsy And Elephantiasis, Which We Ought To Have Tapped.

Always The Seer Is A Sayer. Somehow His Dream Is Told; Somehow He Publishes It With Solemn Joy: Sometimes With Pencil On Canvas, Sometimes With Chisel On Stone, Sometimes In Towers And Aisles Of Granite, His Soul's Worship Is Builded; Sometimes In Anthems Of Indefinite Music, But Clearest And Most Permanent, In Words.

A Life In Harmony With Nature, The Love Of Truth And Virtue, Will Purge The Eyes To Understanding Her Text.

We Are Never Without A Pilot. When We Know Not How To Steer, And Dare Not Hoist A Sail, We Can Drift. The Current Knows The Way, Though We Do Not. The Ship Of Heaven Guides Itself, And Will Not Accept A Wooden Rudder.

The Hero Is Suffered To Be Himself.

Again, The Great Number Of Cultivated Men Keep Each Other Up To A High Standard. The Habit Of Meeting Well-read And Knowing Men Teaches The Art Of Omission And Selection.

To Believe Your Own Thought, To Believe That What Is True For You In Your Private Heart, Is True For All Men - That Is Genius... Whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist... What I Must Do, Is All That Concerns Me; Not What The People Think... Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself; Nothing, But The Triumph Of Principles.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions.

Will And Determination

Every Man Who Would Do Anything Well, Must Come To It From A Higher Ground.

Put God In Your Debt. Every Stroke Shall Be Repaid. The Longer The Payment Is With-held, The Better For You; For Compound Interest On Compound Interest Is The Rate And Usage Of This Exchequer.

Common Sense Is Genius Dressed In Its Working Clothes.

Though Thou Loved Her As Thyself, As A Self Of Purer Clay, Tho' Her Parting Dims The Day, Stealing Grace From All Alive, Heartily Know, When Half-gods Go, The Gods Arrive.

The Hand That Rounded Peter's Dome, And Groined The Aisles Of Christian Rome, Wrought In A Sad Sincerity; Himself From God He Could Not Free; He Builded Better Than He Knew: The Conscious Stone To Beauty Grew.

A Man Should Carry Nature In His Head.

For What Are They All In Their High Conceit, When Man In The Bush With God May Meet?

There Is A Mortifying Experience In Particular, Which Does Not Fail To Wreak Itself Also In The General History; I Mean "the Foolish Face Of Praise," The Forced Smile Which We Put On In Company Where We Do Not Feel At Ease, In Answer To Conversation Which Does Not Interest Us. The Muscles, Not Spontaneously Moved But Moved, By A Low Usurping Wilfulness, Grow Tight About The Outline Of The Face, With The Most Disagreeable Sensation.

Let Him Go Where He Will, He Can Only Find So Much Beauty Or Worth As He Carries.

Only To Youth Will Spring Be Spring.

Great Is The Art, Great Be The Manners, Of The Bard. He Shall Not His Brain Encumber With The Coil Of Rhythm And Number; But, Leaving Rule And Pale Forethought, He Shall Aye Climb For His Rhyme. "pass In, Pass In," The Angels Say

Logic Is The Procession Or Proportionate Unfolding Of The Intuition; But Its Virtue Is As Silent Method; The Moment It Would Appear As Propositions, And Have A Separate Value, It Is Worthless.

We Are The Prisoners Of Ideas.

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

When The Man Is At Home, His Standing In Society Is Well Known And Quietly Taken; But When He Is Abroad, It Is Problematical, And Is Dependent On The Success Of His Manners.

Education Should Be As Broad As Man.

Wit Makes Its Own Welcome, And Levels All Distinctions.

I Do Not Speak With Any Fondness But The Language Of Coolest History, When I Say That Boston Commands Attention As The Town Whichwas Appointed In The Destiny Of Nations To Lead The Civilization Of North America.

Death Comes To All, But Great Achievements Build A Monument Which Shall Endure Until The Sun Grows Cold.

The Ocean Is A Large Drop; A Drop Is A Small Ocean.

Let Us Answer A Book Of Ink With A Book Of Flesh And Blood.

But We Need Not Fear That We Can Lose Any Thing By The Progress Of The Soul. The Soul May Be Trusted To The End.

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

Judicious Praise Is To Children What The Sun Is To Flowers. Christian Bovee A Little Praise Goes A Great Ways.

Are You Not Scared By Seeing That The Gypsies Are More Attractive To Us Than The Apostles?

We Aim Above The Mark To Hit The Mark.

He Is A Good Man, Who Can Receive A Gift Well. We Are Either Glad Or Sorry At A Gift, And Both Emotions Are Unbecoming.

Come, See The North-wind's Masonry, Out Of An Unseen Quarry Evermore Furnished With Tile, The Fierce Artificer Curves His White Bastions With Projected Roof Round Every Windward Stake, Or Tree, Or Door. Speeding, The Myriad-handed, His Wild Work So Fanciful, So Savage, Naught Cares He For Number Or Proportion.

We Pray To Be Conventional. But The Wary Heaven Takes Care You Shall Not Be, If There Is Anything Good In You. Dante Was Very Badcompany, And Was Never Invited To Dinner.

Every Burned Book Enlightens The World.

Nothing Is Arbitrary, Nothing Is Insulated In Beauty. It Depends Forever On The Necessary And The Useful. The Plumage Of The Bird, The Mimic Plumage Of The Insect, Has A Reason For Its Rich Colors In The Constitution Of The Animal. Fitness Is So Inseparable An Accompaniment Of Beauty, That It, Has Been Taken For It.

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.

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 Secret Of The World Is The Tie Between Person And Event. Person Makes Event And Event Person.

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

Broader And Deeper We Must Write Our Annals, From An Ethical Reformation, From An Influx Of The Ever New, Ever Sanative Conscience, If We Would Trulier Express Our Central And Wide-related Nature, Instead Of This Old Chronology Of Selfishness And Pride To Which We Have Too Long Lent Our Eyes. Already That Day Exists For Us, Shines In On Us At Unawares, But The Path Of Science And Of Letters Is Not The Way Into Nature. 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.

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

At Present, Man Applies To Nature But Half His Force. He Works On The World With His Understanding Alone. He Lives In It, And Masters It By A Penny-wisdom; And He That Works Most In It, Is But A Half-man, And Whilst His Arms Are Strong And His Digestion Good, His Mind Is Imbruted, And He Is A Selfish Savage.

An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought. A Right Action Seems To Fill The Eye, And To Be Related To All Nature.

The Whole Of Heraldry And Of Chivalry Is In Courtesy. A Man Of Fine Manners Shall Pronounce Your Name With All The Ornament That Titles Of Nobility Could Ever Add.

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

I Like People Who Like Plato.

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

Every Individual Man Has A Bias Which He Must Obey, And...it Is Only As He Feels And Obeys This That He Rightly Develops And Attains His Legitimate Power In The World. It Is His Magnetic Needle, Which Points Always In One Direction To His Proper Path.... He Is Never Happy Nor Strong Until He Finds It, Keeps It.

The World Is All Gates, All Opportunities, Strings Of Tension Waiting To Be Struck.

The Frost Which Kills The Harvest Of A Year Saves The Harvest Of A Century, By Destroying The Weevil Or The Locust.

Good Poetry Could Not Have Been Otherwise Written Than It Is. The First Time You Hear It, It Sounds Rather As If Copied Out Of Some Invisible Tablet In The Eternal Mind Than As If Arbitrarily Composed By The Poet.

No Facts Are To Me Sacred; None Are Profane; I Simply Experiment, An Endless Seeker, With No Past At My Back.

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.

Revolutions Go Not Backward.

Every Revolution Was First A Thought In One Man's Mind.

Happy Is The House That Shelters A Friend! It Might Well Be Built, Like A Festal Bower Or Arch, To Entertain Him A Single Day. Happier, If He Know The Solemnity Of That Relation, And Honor Its Law! He Offers Himself A Candidate For That Covenant Comes Up, Like An Olympian, To The Great Games, Where The First- Born Of The World Are The Competitors.

A Man Of Good Sense But Of Little Faith, Whose Compassion Seemed To Lead Him To Church As Often As He Went There, Said To Me; 'that He Liked To Have Concerts, And Fairs, And Churches, And Other Public Amusements Go On.

Bring Me Wine, But Wine Which Never Grew In The Belly Of The Grape

It Is Commonly Observed That A Sudden Wealth, Like A Prize Drawn In A Lottery Or A Large Bequest To A Poor Family, Does Not Permanently Enrich. They Have Served No Apprenticeship To Wealth, And With The Rapid Wealth Come Rapid Claims Which They Do Not Know How To Deny, And The Treasure Is Quickly Dissipated.

Beware Of Jokes From Which We Go Away Hollow And Ashamed.

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

A Day For Toil, An Hour For Sport, But For A Friend Is Life Too Short.

Do What You Fear And Your Fear Will Die.

What A Searching Preacher Of Self-command Is The Varying Phenomenon Of Health.

I Will No Longer Confer, Differ, Refer, Defer, Prefer, Or Suffer. I Renounce The Whole Tribe Of Fero. I Embrace Absolute Life.

Love Is Our Highest Word And The Synonym Of God.

What A Man Does, That He Has. What Has He To Do With Hope Or Fear? In Himself Is His Might. Let Him Regard No Good As Solid But That Which Is In His Nature, And Which Must Grow Out Of Him As Long As He Exists. The Goods Of Fortune May Come And Go Like Summer Leaves; Let Him Scatter Them On Every Wind As The Momentary Signs Of His Infinite Productiveness.

Invention Breeds Invention.

Man Thinking Must Not Be Subdued By His Instruments. Books Are For The Scholar's Idle Times. When He Can Read God Directly, The Hour Is Too Precious To Be Wasted In Other Men's Transcripts Of Their Readings.

The Art Of Sculpture Is Long Ago Perished To Any Real Effect... It Is The Game Of A Rude And Youthful People, And Not The Manly Labour Of A Wise And Spiritual Nation.

Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

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.

It Was A Pleasure And A Privilege To Walk With Him [h.d. Thoreau]. He Knew The Country Like A Fox Or A Bird, And Passed Through It As Freely By Paths Of His Own.

The Italians Are Fond Of Red Clothes, Peacock Plumes, And Embroidery; And I Remember One Rainy Morning In The City Of Palermo, The Street Was Ablaze With Scarlet Umbrellas.

I Find Nothing Healthful Or Exalting In The Smooth Conventions Of Society. I Do Not Like The Close Air Of Saloons. I Begin To Suspect Myself To Be A Prisoner, Though Treated With All This Courtesy And Luxury. I Pay A Destructive Tax In My Conformity.

The True Thrift Is Always To Spend On The Higher Plane; To Invest And Invest, With Keener Avarice, That He May Spend In Spiritualcreation, And Not In Augmenting Animal Existence. Nor Is The Man Enriched, In Repeating The Old Experiments Of Animal Sensation; Nor Unless Through New Powers And Ascending Pleasures He Knows Himself By The Actual Experience Of Higher Good To Be Already On The Way To The Highest.

Don't Make A Novel To Establish A Principle Of Political Economy. You Will Spoil Both.

The Life Of Labor Does Not Make Men, But Drudges.

I Do Then With My Friends As I Do With My Books. I Would Have Them Where I Can Find Them, But I Seldom Use Them.

We Gain The Strength Of The Temptation We Resist.

Shallow Men Believe In Luck, Believe In Circumstances: It Was Somebody's Name, Or He Happened To Be There At Right Time, Or It Was So Then, And Another Day It Would Have Been Otherwise. Strong Men Believe In Cause And Effect.

The World Of Men Show Like A Comedy Without Laughter: Populations, Interests, Government, History; 't Is All Toy Figures In A Toyhouse.

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