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Without Looking, Then, To Those Extraordinary Social Influences Which Are Now Acting In Precisely This Direction, But Only At Whatis Inevitably Doing Around Us, I Think We Must Regard The Land As A Commanding And Increasing Power On The Citizen, The Sanative And Americanizing Influence, Which Promises To Disclose New Virtues For Ages To Come.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Without Looking, Then, To

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Without Looking, Then, To Those Extraordinary Social Influences Which Are Now Acting In Precisely This Direction, But Only At Whatis Inevitably Doing Around Us, I Think We Must Regard The Land As A Commanding And Increasing Power On The Citizen, The Sanative And Americanizing Influence, Which Promises To Disclose New Virtues For Ages To Come.

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

Good Thoughts Are No Better Than Good Dreams If You Don't Follow Through.

Read Proudly--put The Duty Of Being Read Invariably On The Author. If He Is Not Read, Whose Fault Is It? I Am Quite Ready To Be Charmed, But I Shall Not Make-believe I Am Charmed.

As Men's Prayers Are A Disease Of The Will, So Are Their Creeds A Disease Of The Intellect.

Action Is The Process Whereby What Is Not Fully Formed Passes Into Expressive Consciousness.

You Send Your Child To The Schoolmaster, But 'tis The Schoolboys Who Educate Him. You Send Him To The Latin Class, But Much Of Histuition Comes, On His Way To School, From The Shop- Windows.

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.

What Torments Of Grief You Endured, From Evils That Never Arrived

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

A Little Integrity Is Better Than Any Career.

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

Some Will Always Be Above Others.

I Am Present At The Sowing Of The Seed Of The World. With A Geometry Of Sunbeams, The Soul Lays The Foundations Of Nature.

Some Men Are Born To Own, And Can Animate All Their Possessions. Others Cannot: Their Owning Is Not Graceful; Seems To Be A Compromise Of Their Character: They Seem To Steal Their Own Dividends.

Government Exists To Defend The Weak And The Poor And The Injured Party; The Rich And The Strong Can Better Take Care Of Themselves.

Excellence Is The New Forever.

I Wish That Friendship Should Have Feet, As Well As Eyes And Eloquence. It Must Plant Itself On The Ground, Before It Vaults Overthe Moon. I Wish It To Be A Little Of A Citizen, Before It Is Quite A Cherub.

The Believing We Do Something When We Do Nothing Is The First Illusion Of Tobacco.

Genius Borrows Nobly.

To Fill The Hour; That Is Happiness To Fill The Hour, And Leave No Crevice For A Repentance Or An Approval.

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.

It Sometimes Occurs That Memory Has A Personality Of Its Own And Volunteers Or Refuses Its Information At Its Will, Not At Mine.

To The Birds And Trees He Talks: Caesar Of His Leafy Rome, There The Poet Is At Home.

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.

Great Thoughts Ensure Musical Expression.

Musical Expression

First Be A Good Animal.

The Martyr Cannot Be Dishonored. Every Lash Inflicted Is A Tongue Of Fame; Every Prison A More Illustrious Abode.

To Give Money To A Sufferer Is Only A Come-off. It Is Only A Postponement Of The Real Payment, A Bribe Paid For Silence, A Creditsystem In Which A Paper Promise To Pay Answers For The Time Instead Of Liquidation. We Owe To Man Higher Succors Than Food And Fire. We Owe To Man.

For Everything You Gain, You Lose Something.

Missing Someone

In Talking With Scholars, I Observe That They Lost On Ruder Companions Those Years Of Boyhood Which Alone Could Give Imaginative Literature A Religious And Infinite Quality In Their Esteem.

Be Not The Slave Of Your Own Past - Plunge Into The Sublime Seas, Dive Deep, And Swim Far.

All Great Successes Are The Triumph Of Persistence.

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

We Must Be Very Suspicious Of The Deceptions Of The Element Of Time. It Takes A Good Deal Of Time To Eat Or To Sleep, Or To Earn Ahundred Dollars, And A Very Little Time To Entertain A Hope And An Insight Which Becomes The Light Of Our Life.

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

Explore, And Explore, And Explore. Be Neither Chided Nor Flattered Out Of Your Position Of Perpetual Inquiry. Neither Dogmatise Yourself, Nor Accept Another's Dogmatism. Why Should You Renounce Your Right To Traverse The Star-lit Deserts Of Truth, For The Premature Comforts Of An Acre, House, And Barn? Truth Also Has Its Roof, And Bed, And Board. Make Yourself Necessary To The World, And Mankind Will Give You Bread, And If Not Store Of It, Yet Such As Shall Not Take Away Your Property In All Men's Possessions, In All Men's Affections, In Art, In Nature, And In Hope.

Life Only Avails, Not The Having Lived.

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

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.

Man Was Born To Be Rich, Or To Inevitably Grow Rich, By The Use Of His Faculties: By The Union Of Thought With Nature.

Excite The Soul, And The Weather And The Town And Your Condition In The World All Disappear; The World Itself Loses Its Solidity, Nothing Remains But The Soul And The Divine Presence In Which It Lives.

Next To The Originator Of A Good Sentence Is The First Quoter Of It. Many Will Read The Book Before One Thinks Of Quoting A Passage. As Soon As He Has Done This, That Line Will Be Quoted East And West.

There Is More In Every Person's Soul Than We Think.

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

Life Loiters At The Book's First Page,-- Ah! Could We Turn The Leaf.

There Are Only Ten Minutes In The Life Of A Pear When It Is Perfect To Eat.

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

The Sun Shines And Warms And Lights Us And We Have No Curiosity To Know Why This Is So; But We Ask The Reason Of All Evil, Of Pain, And Hunger, And Mosquitoes And Silly People.

Contemporary American Psychiatrist It Is A Happy Talent To Know How To Play.

It's A Luxury To Be Understood.

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

The Miracles Of Genius Always Rest On Profound Convictions Which Refuse To Be Analyzed.

The Street Is Full Of Humiliations To The Proud.

No Picture Of Life Can Have Any Veracity That Does Not Admit The Odious Facts. A Man's Power Is Hooped In By A Necessity, Which, By Many Experiments, He Touches On Every Side, Until He Learns Its Arc.

I Think Sometimes Could I Only Have Music On My Own Terms, Could I Live In A Great City, And Know Where I Could Go Whenever I Wished The Ablution And Inundation Of Musical Waves, That Were A Bath And A Medicine.

The Experience Of Each New Age Requires A New Confession, And The World Seems Always Waiting For Its Poet

We But Half Express Ourselves, And Are Ashamed Of That Divine Idea Which Each Of Us Represents.

If A Man Is At Heart Just, Then In So Far Is He God; The Safety Of God, The Immortality Of God, The Majesty Of God Do Enter Into That Man With Justice.

Is The Parent Better Than The Child Into Whom He Has Cast His Ripened Being? Whence, Then, This Worship Of The Past?

Every Natural Action Is Graceful.

There Comes A Time In Each Man's Education In Which He Comes To The Conclusion That Envy Is Ignorance, Imitation Is Suicide, And Society In In Conspiracy Against Each One Of Its Members.

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 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.

Do Not Speak Of God Much. After A Very Little Conversation On The Highest Nature, Thought Deserts Us And We Run Into Formalism.

Nature Arms Each Man With Some Faculty Which Enables Him To Do Easily Some Feat Impossible To Any Other, And Thus Makes Him Necessary To Society. ... Society Can Never Prosper, But Must Always Be Bankrupt, Until Every Man Does That Which He Was Created To Do.

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

An Empire Is An Immense Egotism.

The Last Change In Our Point Of View Gives The Whole World A Pictorial Air.

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

Man's Actions Are The Picture Book Of His Creeds.

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.

The Great Majority Of Men Are Bundles Of Beginnings

So In Accepting The Leading Of The Sentiments, It Is Not What We Believe Concerning The Immortality Of The Soul, Or The Like, But The Universal Impulse To Believe, That Is The Material Circumstance, And Is The Principal Fact In This History Of The Globe.

No Institution Will Be Better Than The Institutor.

As Soon As There Is Life There Is Danger.

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

Happy Will That House Be In Which The Relations Are Formed From Character; After The Highest, And Not After The Lowest Order; The House In Which Character Marries, And Not Confusion And A Miscellany Of Unavowable Motives.

A Scholar Is A Candle Which The Love And Desire Of All Men Will Light.

A Divine Person Is The Prophecy Of The Mind; A Friend Is The Hope Of The Heart.

We Find In Life Exactly What We Put Into It

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

I Knew A Witty Physician Who Found Theology In The Biliary Duct, And Used To Affirm That If There Was A Disease In The Liver, The Man Became A Calvinist, And If That Organ Was Sound, He Became A Unitarian.

We Resent All Criticism Which Denies Us Anything That Lies In Our Line Of Advance.

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.

A Great Man Is Always Willing To Be Little.

The Sower May Mistake And Sow His Peas Crookedly; The Peas Make No Mistake, But Come Up And Show His Line.

The Word Liberty In The Mouth Of Mr. Webster Sounds Like The Word Love In The Mouth Of A Courtesan.

The True Ship Is The Ship Builder.

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

...what Torments Of Pain Have You Endured That Haven't As Yet Arrived? And May Never!

We Are Disgusted By Gossip; Yet It Is Of Importance To Keep The Angels In Their Proprieties.

My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life.

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

All Violence, All That Is Dreary And Repels, Is Not Power, But The Absence Of Power.

And Of Poetry, The Success Is Not Attained When It Lulls And Satisfies, But When It Astonishes And Fires Us With New Endeavours After The Unattainable.

Every Stoic Was A Stoic; But In Christendom Where Is The Christian?

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.

We Aim Above The Mark To Hit The Mark.

Of All Debts, Men Are Least Willing To Pay Their Taxes; What A Satire This Is On Government.

A Sturdy Lad From New Hampshire Or Vermont Who In Turn Tries All The Professions, Who Teams It, Farms It, Peddles, Keeps A School,preaches, Edits A Newspaper, Goes To Congress, Buys A Township, And So Forth, In Successive Years, And Always Like A Cat Falls On His Feet, Is Worth A Hundred Of These City Dolls. He Walks Abreast With His Days And Feels No Shame In Not "studying A Profession," For He Does Not Postpone His Life, But Lives Already.

The Secret Of Drunkenness Is, That It Insulates Us In Thought, Whilst It Unites Us In Feeling.

Life Will Show You Masks That Are Worth All Your Carnivals

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

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.

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.

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

Men Talk As If Victory Were Something Fortunate. Work Is Victory.

Belief Consists In Accepting The Affirmations Of The Soul; Unbelief In Denying Them.

If The Black Man Is Feeble And Not Important To The Existing Races, Not On A Parity With The Best Race, The Black Man Must Serve,and Be Exterminated. But If The Black Man Carries In His Bosom An Indispensable Element Of A New And Coming Civilization; For The Sake Of That Element, No Wrong Nor Strength Nor Circumstance Can Hurt Him: He Will Survive And Play His Part. So Now, The Arrival In The World Of Such Men As Toussaint, And The Haytian Heroes, Or Of The Leaders Of Their Race In Barbadoes And Jamaica, Outweighs In Good Omen All The English And American Humanity.

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

No Law Can Be Sacred To Me But That Of My Nature. Good And Bad Are But Names Very Readily Transferable To That Or This; The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.

In Old Egypt, It Was Established Law, That The Vote Of A Prophet Be Reckoned Equal To A Hundred Hands. I Think It Was Much Under-estimated.

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.

A Beautiful Person Among The Greeks, Was Thought To Betray By This Sign Some Secret Favor Of The Immortal Gods; And We Can Pardonpride, When A Woman Possesses Such A Figure That Wherever She Stands, Or Moves, Or Leaves A Shadow On The Wall, Or Sits For A Portrait To The Artist, She Confers A Favor On The World.

The Other Terror That Scares Us From Self-trust Is Our Consistency; A Reverence For Our Past Act Or Word, Because The Eyes Of Others Have No Other Data For Computing Our Orbit Than Our Past Acts, And We Are Loath To Disappoint Them.

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

Our Faith Comes In Moments . . . Yet There Is A Depth In Those Brief Moments Which Constrains Us To Ascribe More Reality To Them Than To All Other Experiences.

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.

We Begin With Friendships, And All Our Youth Is A Reconnoitering And Recruiting Of The Holy Fraternity They Shall Combine For Thesalvation Of Men. But So The Remoter Stars Seem A Nebula Of United Light, Yet There Is No Group Which A Telescope Will Not Resolve; And The Dearest Friends Are Separated By Impassable Gulfs.

Universities Are Of Course Hostile To Geniuses, Which, Seeing And Using Ways Of Their Own, Discredit The Routine: As Churches And Monasteries Persecute Youthful Saints.

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.

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.

The House ...she Lays Her Beams In Music, In Music Everyone, To The Cadence Of The Whirling World Which Dances Around The Sun- That So They Shall Not Be Displaced By Lapses Or By Wars, But For The Love Of Happy Souls Outlive The Newest Stars.

The Craft Of The Merchant Is This Bringing A Thing Where It Abounds To Where It Is Costly.

There Is A Property In The Horizon Which No Man Has, But He Whose Eyes Can Integrate All The Parts,--that Is, The Poet.

Freedom Has Nothing To Do With Having The Right To Vote For Your Oppressor; Freedom Is Not Having Any Form Of Oppression.

The Time Is Coming When All Men Will See That The Gift Of God To The Soul Is Not A Vaunting, Overpowering, Excluding Sanctity, Buta Sweet, Natural Goodness, A Goodness Like Thine And Mine, And That So Invites Thine And Mine To Be And To Grow.

A Great Man Will Find A Great Subject, Or Which Is The Same Thing, Make Any Subject Great.

There Can Never Be Deep Peace Between Two Spirits, Never Mutual Respect, Until, In Their Dialogue, Each Stands For The Whole World.

Society Is A Wave. The Wave Moves Onward, But The Water Of Which It Is Composed Does Not.

The Results Of Life Are Uncalculated And Uncalculable. The Years Teach Much Which The Days Never Know. The Persons Who Compose Our Company, Converse, And Come And Go, And Design And Execute Many Things, And Somewhat Comes Of It All, But An Unlooked For Result. The Individual Is Always Mistaken. He Designed Many Things, And Drew In Other Persons As Coadjutors, Quarrelled With Some Or All, Blundered Much, And Something Is Done; All Are A Little Advanced, But The Individual Is Always Mistaken. It Turns Out Somewhat New, And Very Unlike What He Promised Himself.

Man Is A Stream Whose Source Is Hidden. Our Being Is Descending Into Us From We Know Not Whence. The Most Exact Calculator Has Noprescience That Somewhat Incalculable May Not Balk The Very Next Moment. I Am Constrained Every Moment To Acknowledge A Higher Origin For Events Than The Will I Call Mine.

Every Advantage Has Its Tax.

Nobody Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

For He That Feeds Men Serveth Few; He Serves All Who Dares Be True.

Men In All Ways Are Better Than They Seem.

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

A Judge May Be A Farmer; But He Is Not To Geld His Own Pigs.

All Great Masters Are Chiefly Distinguished By The Power Of Adding A Second, A Third, And Perhaps A Fourth Step In A Continuous Line. Many A Man Has Taken The First Step. With Every Additional Step You Enhance Immensely The Value Of Your First.

Men Of Character Are The Conscience Of The Society To Which They Belong.

History No Longer Shall Be A Dull Book. It Shall Walk Incarnate In Every Just And Wise Man. You Shall Not Tell Me By Language And Titles A Catalogue Of The Volumes You Have Read. You Shall Make Me Feel What Periods You Have Lived.

Give Me Truths For I Am Weary Of The Surfaces.

Wouldst Thou Shut Up The Avenues Of Ill, Pay Every Debt As If God Wrote The Bill.

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

Let Me Admonish You, First Of All, To Go Alone; To Refuse The Good Models, Even Those Which Are Sacred In The Imagination Of Men, And Dare To Love God Without Mediator Or Veil.

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

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

Nature Never Rhymes Her Children, Nor Makes Two Men Alike. When We See A Great Man, We Fancy A Resemblance To Some Historical Person, And Predict The Sequel Of His Character And Fortune, A Result Which He Is Sure To Disappoint. None Will Ever Solve The Problem Of His Character According To Our Prejudice, But Only In His High Unprecedented Way.

There Is A Time In Every Man's Education When He Arrives At The Conviction That Envy Is Ignorance; That Imitation Is Suicide; That He Must Take Himself For Better, For Worse, As His Portion; That 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. The Power Which Resides In Him Is New In Nature, And None But He Knows What That Is Which He Can Do, Nor Does He Know Until He Has Tried.

Art Is The Need To Create; But In Its Essence, Immense And Universal, It Is Impatient Of Working With Lame Or Tied Hands, And Of Making Cripples And Monsters, Such As All Pictures And Statues Are. Nothing Less Than The Creation Of Man And Nature Is Its End.

The Only True Gifts Are A Portion Of Yourself.

All Promise Outruns Performance.

Thy Dangerous Glances Make Women Of Men; New-born, We Are Melting Into Nature Again.

Truth Has Already Ceased To Be Itself If Polemically Said.

We Animate What We Can See, And We See Only What We Animate.

Commonsense Is The Wick Of The Candle.

I Have Thought A Sufficient Measure Of Civilization Is The Influence Of Good Women.

Every Day Brings A Ship, Every Ship Brings A Word; Well For Those Who Have No Fear, Looking Seaward Well Assured That The Word The Vessel Brings Is The Word They Wish To Hear.

It Is About Your Outlook Towards Life. You Can Either Regret Or Rejoice.

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

For Every Grain Of Wit There Is A Grain Of Folly.

Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Short Distances The Senses Are Despotic.

Books Are The Best Of Things If Well Used; If Abused, Among The Worst. They Are Good For Nothing But To Inspire. I Had Better Never See A Book Than Be Warped By Its Attraction Clean Out Of My Own Orbit, And Made A Satellite Instead Of A System.

No Matter How Much Faculty Of Idle Seeing A Man Has, The Step From Knowing To Doing Is Rarely Taken.

My Book Should Smell Of Pines And Resound With The Hum Of Insects.

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

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

Men Are What Their Mothers Made Them. You May As Well Ask A Loom Which Weaves Huckabuck Why It Does Not Make Cashmere As To Expect Poetry From This Engineer Or A Chemical Discovery From That Jobber.

All Natural Objects Make A Kindred Impression, When The Mind Is Open To Their Influence.

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

The Blazing Evidence Of Immortality Is Our Dissatisfaction With Any Other Solution.

In The Woods Too, A Man Casts Off His Years, As The Snake His Slough, And At What Period Soever Of Life, Is Always A Child. In The Woods, Is Perpetual Youth.

The Wonder Is That We Can See These Trees And Not Wonder More.

Power Is The First Good.

Tobacco, Coffee, Alcohol, Hashish, Prussic Acid, Strychnine, Are Weak Dilutions. The Surest Poison Is Time.

The World We Live In Is But Thickened Light.

But It Is Impossible That The Creative Power Should Exclude Itself. Into Every Intelligence There Is A Door Which Is Never Closed,through Which The Creator Passes.

The "times," "the Age" What Is That, But A Few Profound Persons And A Few Active Persons Who Epitomize The Times?

Language Is A City, To The Building Of Which Every Human Being Brought A Stone; Yet He Is No More To Be Credited With The Grand Result Than The Acaleph Which Adds A Cell To The Coral Reef Which Is The Basis Of The Continent.

Earth Endures; Stars Abide.

We Are Symbols, And Inhabit Symbols.

Of Cheerfulness, Or A Good Temper - The More It Is Spent, The More Of It Remains.

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

Self-command Is The Main Elegance.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See. If You Look For What Is Good And What You Can Be Grateful For You Will Find It Everywhere.

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

There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right.

The First Lesson Of History Is That Evil Is Good.

Man Is Priest, And Scholar, And Statesman, And Producer, And Soldier. In The Divided Or Social State These Functions Are Parcelled Out To Individuals, Each Of Whom Aims To Do His Stint Of The Joint Work, Whilst Each Other Performs His.

The Poet's Habit Of Living Should Be Set On A Key So Low That The Common Influences Should Delight Him.

Crime And Punishment Grow Out Of One Stem.

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

If The Individuals Who Compose The Purest Circles Of Aristocracy In Europe, The Guarded Blood Of Centuries, Should Pass In Review,in Such Manner As That We Could, At Leisure, And Critically Inspect Their Behavior, We Might Find No Gentleman, And No Lady; For, Although Excellent Specimens Of Courtesy And High-breeding Would Gratify Us In The Assemblage, In The Particulars, We Should Detect Offence. Because, Elegance Comes Of No Breeding, But Of Birth.

You Cannot Make A Cheap Palace.

The Populace Drags Down The Gods To Their Own Level.

In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

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

Or Whipping Its Rough Surface For A Trout.

Do Not Follow Where The Path May Lead.

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

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