Ralph Waldo Emerson

1. “A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.”
2. ”Accept your genius and say what you think.”
3. ”A certain wandering light comes to me which I instantly perceive to be the Cause of Causes. It transcends all proving. It is itself the ground of being; and I see that it is not one & I another, but this is the life of my life.”
4. “A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.”
5. ”Act, if you like, but you do it at your peril. Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.”
6. ”A day... is a miniature eternity.”
7. “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. -- `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' -- Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
8. “A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.”
9. ”Again I saw, again I heard, The rolling river, the morning bird;-- Beauty through my senses stole; I yielded myself to the perfect whole.”
10. ”A good indignation brings out all one's powers.”
11. “A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.”
12. “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.”
13. “Alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine are weak dilutions. The surest poison is time.”
14. “A leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world. . . . So intimate is this Unity, that, it is easily seen, it lies under the undermost garment of nature, and betrays its source in the Universal Spirit. . . It is like a great circle on a sphere, comprising all possible circles; which, however, may be drawn, and comprise it, in like manner.”
15. ”All goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not a function like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light; is not the intellect or the will, but the master of the intellect and the will; is the background of our being, in which they lie, -- an immensity not possessed and that cannot be possessed.”
16. ”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 (wo)man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.”
17. "All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen."’
18. ”All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
19. ”A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labours are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong… Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment.”
20. “All mankind love a lover.”
21. ”A man is a golden impossibility. The line he must walk is a hair's breadth. The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.”
22. "A man's action is only a picture book of his creed."
23. "A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness."
24. "All necessary truth is its own evidence."
25. "All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one."
26. “All the devils respect virtue.”
27. “Always do what you are afraid to do.”
28. “All persons, all things which we have known, are here present, and many more than we see; the world is full.”
29. “All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle.”
30. ”All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.”
31. ”All things are known to the soul. It is not to be surprised by any communication. Nothing can be greater than it, let those fear and those fawn who will. The soul is in her native realm; and it is wider than space, older than time, wide as hope, rich as love. Pusillanimity and fear she refuses with a beautiful scorn; they are not for her who putteth on her coronation robes, and goes out through universal love to universal power.”
32. ”All violence, all that is dreary and repels, is not power, but the absence of power.”
33. "A low self-love in the parent desires that his child should repeat his character and fortune. I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being on a young soul to which he is totally unfit. Cannot we let people be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make another you. One's enough."
34. “Always do what you are afraid to do.”
35. ”A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.”
36. ”A man contains all that is needful to his government within himself. He is made a law unto himself. All real good or evil that can befall him must be from himself . . . The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint man with himself. He is not to live to the future as described to him, but to live in the real future by living to the real present. The highest revelation is that God is in every man.”
37. “A man finds room in the few square inches of his face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.”
38. “A man is a god in ruins.”
39. "A man is related to all nature."
40. “A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man.”
41. "A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the notion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary but every thing hath affinities infinite."
42. ”A man is related to all nature.”
43. "A man is what he thinks about all day long."
44. “A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.”
45. ”A man's library is a sort of harem.”
46. “A man's personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.”
47. “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within.”
48. ”A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue. Then instantly he is instructed in what is above him. He learns that his being is without bound; that, to the good, to the perfect, he is born, low as he now lies in evil and weakness. That which he venerates is still his own, though he has not realized it yet. He ought. He knows the sense of that grand word, though his analysis fails entirely to render account of it. When in innocency, or when by intellectual perception,he attains to say, - "I love the Right; Truth is beautiful within and without, forevermore. Virtue, I am thine: save me: use me: thee will I serve, day and night, in great, in small, that I may be not virtuous, but virtue;" - then is the end of the creation answered, and God is well pleased.”
49. ”And what is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not been discovered.”
50. "An empire is an immense egotism."
51. “An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance with joy.”
52. ”An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.”
53. “A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely . . . but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every attitude.“
54. “Art is a jealous mistress.”
55. “A ruddy drop of manly bloodThe surging sea outweighs;The world uncertain comes and goes,The lover rooted stays.”
56. "A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages."
57. “A sect or party is an elegant incognito, devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.”
58. "As soon as there is life there is danger."
59. "As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues."
60. ”At last I discovered that my curve was a parabola whose arcs would never meet, and came to acquiesce in the perception that although no diligence can rebuild the Universe in a model by the best accumulation or disposition of details, yet does the World reproduce itself in miniature in every event that transpires, so that all the laws of nature may be read in the smallest fact.”
61. ”As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.“
62. "At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins."
63. "Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss."
64. “Be a football to Time and Chance, the more kicks the better, so that you inspect the whole game and know its utmost law.”
65. "Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, What it will do with you? You will come here and get books that will open your eyes, and your ears, and your curiosity, and turn you inside out or outside in."
66. ”Be and not seem.”
67. "Be an opener of doors."
68. ”Beauty rests on necessities. The line of beauty is the line of perfect economy.”
69. ”Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.”
70. ”Be true to your own act and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant to break the monotony of a decorous age.”
71. “Beware what you set your heart upon, for it shall surely be yours.”
72. ”Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.”
73. “Body: A thing of shreds and patches, borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors and a misfit from the start.”
74. “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.”
75. ”But in the mud and scum of thingsThere always something sings…”
76. “But real action is in silent moments. The epochs of our life are not in the visible facts of our choice of a calling, our marriage, our acquisition of an office, and the like, but in a silent thought by the way-side as we walk; in a thought which revises our entire manner of life, and says,—”Thus hast thou done, but it were better thus.”
77. ”But where shall we find the first atom in this house of man, which is all consent, inosculation, and balance of parts?”
78. “By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.”
79. “Cannot I conceive the Universe without a Contradiction?”
80. ”Cause and effect are two sides of one fact.”
81. ”Character - a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means.”
82. ”Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.”
83. ”Character is that which can do without success.”
84. ”Character is the habit of action from the permanent vision of truth. It carries a superiority to all the accidents of life. It compels right relation to every other man - domesticates itself with strangers and enemies.”
85. “Chide me not, laborious band!For the idle flowers I brought;Every aster in my handGoes home loaded with a thought.”
86. “Children are all foreigners.”
87. ”Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass. There is no such thing as concealment.”
88. “Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.”
89. “Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries, in a 1000 years, have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another age.”
90. “Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practicing every day while they live.”
91. “Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in the act the invisible thought of his mind.”
92. "Courage consists in equality to the problem before us."
93. “Culture is one thing, and varnish another.”
94. "Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret."
95. “Cut a word and it will bleed.”
96. "Dear to us are those who love us . . . but dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life: they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit, and urge us to new and unattempted performances."
97. ”Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.”
98. ”Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.”
99. “Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experience.”
100. ”Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.”
101. “Do not be an unwise churl & rail at society nor so worldly wise as to condemn solitude. But use them as conditions. Be their master, not their slave. Make circumstance,--all circumstance, conform to the law of your mind.”
102. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
103. "Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and tomorrow you will arrive there and know them by inhabiting them."
104. "Do the thing we fear, and the death of fear is certain."
105. "Do what we can, summer will have its flies."
106. “Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex frames, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate.”
107. “Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody, and to that person whatever he says has an enhanced value.”
108. “Each mind has its own method.”
109. ”Each soul is a soul or an individual in virtue of its having or I may say being a power to translate the universe into some particular language of its own; if not into a picture, a statue, or a dance, why then, into a trade, or an art, or a science or a mode of living, or a conversation, or a character, or an influence--into something great, human, & adequate which, if it do not contain in itself all the dancing, painting, & poetry that ever was, it is because the man is faint hearted & untrue.”
110. "Each work of art excludes the world, concentrates attention on itself. For the time it is the only thing worth doing --to do just that; be it a sonnet, a statue, a landscape, an outline head of Caesar, or an oration. Presently we return to the sight of another that globes itself into a whole as did the first, for example, a beautiful garden; and nothing seems worth doing in life but laying out a garden."
111. “Earth laughs in flowers.”
112. "Every advantage has its tax."
113. “Every artist was first an amateur.”
114. "Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side".
115. "Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other; given the upper, to find the under side."
116. "Every great achievement is the victory of a flaming heart."
117. “Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it.”
118. »Every hero becomes a bore at last.«
119. "Every man believes that he has greater possibilities."
120. “Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.”
121. “Every man contemplates an angel in his future self.”
122. ”Every man has his own vocation, talent is the call.”
123. “Every man I meet is in some way my superior.”
124. ”Every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical and literature a quotation.”
125. “Every man is a channel through which heaven floweth.”
126. "Every man is an impossibility until he is born."
127. "Every man is a consumer and ought to be a producer."
128. "Every mind has a choice between truth and repose. Take which you please you can never have both."
129. “Every new thought supersedes all foregone thought & makes a new light on the whole world.”
130. "Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind."
131. »Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you. For you is the phenomenon perfect. What we are, that only can we see.«
132. "Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good."
133. ”Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of hidden stuff.”
134. "Everything intercepts us from ourselves."
135. "Every thought which genius and piety throw into the world alters the world."
136. ”Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age...”
137. ”Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.”
138. “Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.”
139. ”Every wall is a door.”
140. “Every word was once a poem.”
141. “Eyes are bold as lions, - roving, running, leaping, here and there, far and near. They speak all languages. They wait for no introduction; they are no Englishmen; ask no leave of age or rank; they respect neither property nor riches, neither learning nor power, nor virtue, nor sex, but intrude, and come again, and go through and through you in a moment of time. What inundation of life and thought is discharged from one soul into another through them!”
142. “Faith and love are apt to be spasmodic in the best minds. Men live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which they never enter, and with their hand on the door latch, they die outside. “
143. ”Faith makes us, and not we it, and faith makes its own forms.”
144. “Fame is proof that people are gullible.”
145. "Far or forgot to me is near;Shadow and sunlight are the same;The vanished gods to me appear;And one to me are shame and fame.They reckon ill who leave me out;When me they fly, I am the wings;I am the doubter and the doubt,And I the hymn the Brahmin sings."
146. “Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.”
147. “Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.”
148. "Fear always springs from ignorance."
149. "Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world."
150. “Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”
151. “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, you shall begin it well and serenely...”
152. "Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance."
153. ”For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead.”
154. ”For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”
155. ”For flowing is the secret of things & no wonder the children love masks, & to trick themselves in endless costumes, & be a horse, a soldier, a parson, or a bear; and, older, delight in theatricals; as, in nature, the egg is passing to a grub, the grub to a fly, and the vegetable eye to a bud, the bud to a leaf, a stem, a flower, a fruit; the children have only the instinct of their race, the instinct of the Universe, in which, Becoming somewhat else is the whole game of nature, & death the penalty of standing still...Liberty means the power to flow.”
156. ”For the experience of each new age requires a new confession, and the world seems always waiting for its poet.”
157. »For, the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not
158. ”For the Universe has three children, born at one time, which reappear under different names in every system of thought, whether they are called cause, operation and effect; or more poetically, Jove, Pluto, Neptune; or, theologically, the Father, the Spirit and the Son; but which we will call here the Knower, the Doer and the Sayer. These stand respectively for the love of truty, for the love of good, and for the love of beauty. These three are equal.”
159. ”For we are not pans and barrows, nor even porters of the fire and torchbearers, but children of the fire, made of it, and only the same divinity transmuted, and at two or three removes, when we know least about it.”
160. “From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all.”
161. “Genius always finds itself a century too early.”
162. "Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds."
163. ”God enters by a private door into every individual.”
164. "God will not have his work made manifest by cowards."
165. “God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please; you can never have both.”
166. ”Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.”
167. ”Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.”
168. "Good men must not obey the laws too well."
169. ”Go out of the house to see the moon, and 'tis mere tinsel: it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey.”
170. ”Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.”
171. “Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.”
172. "Half a man's wisdom goes with his courage."
173. "Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself."
174. ”He builded better than he knew; - / The conscious stone to beauty grew.”
175. “He can already rely on the laws of gravity, that every stone will fall where it is due; the good globe is faithful, and carries us securely through the celestial spaces . . . we need not interfere to help it on: and he will learn one day the mild lesson they teach, that our own orbit is all our task, and we need not assist the administration of the universe.”
176. ”He is great who is what he is from nature, and who never reminds us of others.”
177. ”He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.”
178. ”He teaches who gives, and he learns who receives. There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you and you are he; then is a teaching, and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he ever quite lose the benefit.”
179. ”He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds.”
180. ”Heartily know, / When half-gods go, / The gods arrive.”
181. “Here is the world, sound as a nut, perfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never a stitch nor an end, not a mark of haste, or botching, or second thought; but the theory of the world is a thing of shreds and patches.”
182. ”Heroism feels and never reasons and is therefore always right.”
183. "He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses."
184. “He who loves goodness harbors angels, reveres reverence, and lives with God.”
185. "Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now."
186. “Hitch your wagon to a star.”
187. ”How cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew!”
188. ”I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine... When I watch that flowing river, which, out of regions I see not, pours for a season its streams into me, I see that I am a pensioner; not a cause, but a surprised spectator of this ethereal water; that I desire and look up, and put myself in the attitude of reception, but from some alien energy the visions come.”
189. »I am primarily engaged to myself to be a public servant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all men that there is intelligence and good will at the heart of things, and ever higher and yet higher leadings.«
190. "I am sure of this, that by going much alone a man will get more of a noble courage in thought and word than from all the wisdom that is in books."
191. ”I am the doubter and the doubt, / And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.”
192. "I can believe a miracle because I can raise my own arm. I can believe a miracle because I can remember. I can believe it because I can speak and be understood by you."
193. “Ideas must work through the brains and arms of men, or they are no better than dreams.”
194. ”I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I'm not afraid of falling into my inkpot.”
195. "I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable -- any real insight or broad human sentiment."
196. ”If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbour, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.”
197. “If a man carefully examines his thoughts, he will be surprised to find how much he lives in the future. His well-being is always ahead. Such a creature is probably immortal.”
198. "If a man's eye is on the Eternal, his intellect will grow."
199. ”If the red slayer thinks he slays, / Or if the slain think he is slain, / They know not well the subtle ways / I keep, and pass, and turn again.”
200. ”If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.”
201. ”If the Stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.”
202. "If we live truly, we shall see truly."
203. “If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.”
204. ”If you would lift me, you must be on higher ground.”
205. ”If you would write a code or logarithms or a cookbook you cannot spare the poetic impulse. We must not only have hydrogen in balloons and steel springs under coaches but we must have fire under the Andes at the core of the world.”
206. “I hate goodies. I hate goodness that preaches. Goodness that preaches undoes itself...Goodies make us very bad. We should, if the race should increase, be scarce restrained from calling for bowl & dagger. We will almost sin to spite them. Better indulge yourself, feed fat, drink liquors, than go straight laced for such cattle as these.”
207. ”I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
208. “I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.”
209. ”I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow.”
210. ”I know a song which is more hurtful than strychnine or the kiss of the asp. It blasts those who hear it, changes their color & shape, & dissipates their substance. It is called Time.”
211. »I like man, but not men.«
212. ”I like the silent church before the service begins better than any preaching.”
213. “I like to have a man's knowledge comprehend more than one class of topics, one row of shelves. I like a man who likes to see a fine barn as well as a good tragedy.”
214. ”Illusion, Temperament, Succession, Surface, Surprise, Reality, Subjectiveness,--these are threads on the loom of time, these are the lords of life.”
215. "Imagination is not a talent of some people but is the health of everyone."
216. "Imitation is suicide."
217. ”I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot . . . I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your own companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies to live in truth. Does this sound harsh today? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth it will bring us out safe at last.”
218. “In all my lectures, I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the private man.”
219. "In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking his way along, step by step, using every time an old boulder, yet never setting his foot on an old place."
220. "In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil."
221. “In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”
222. "In failing circumstances no one can be relied on to keep their integrity."
223. ”Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it.”
224. “In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.”
225. ”In my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the report of my senses, to know whether the impressions they make on me correspond with outlying objects, what difference does it make, whether Orion is up there in heaven, or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul?”
226. "Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession... Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much."
227. “Insist upon yourself. Be original.”
228. ”In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.”
229. “Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.”
230. “In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.”
231. »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. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, - no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, - my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: To be brothers, to be acquaintances, - master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.«
232. ”Invention breeds invention.”
233. ”Is not every man a student, and do not all things exist for the student's behoof?”
234. ”Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?”
235. ”Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fullness and completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past?”
236. "I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being on a young soul to which they are totally unfit. Cannot we let people be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make that man another you. One's enough."
237. ”I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never find again. Sure he is that he read it there, but no one else ever read it, nor can he find it again, though he buy the book and ransack every page.”
238. “It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.”
239. “It is a lesson which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas, and not in circumstances.”
240. »It is a secret which every intellectual man quickly learns, that, beyond the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect, he is capable of a new energy (as of an intellect doubled on itself), by abandonment to the nature of things; that, beside his privacy of power as an individual man, there is a great public power, on which he can draw, by unlocking, at all risks, his human doors, and suffering the ethereal tides to roll and circulate through him: then he is caught up into the life of the Universe, his speech is thunder, his thought is law, and his words are universally intelligible as the plants and animals. The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly, or, "with the flower of the mind;" not with the intellect, used as an organ, but with the intellect released from all service, and suffered to take its direction from its celestial life; or, as the ancients were wont to express themselves, not with intellect alone, but with the intellect inebriated by nectar. As the traveller who has lost his way, throws his reins on his horse's neck, and trusts to the instinct of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through this world. For if in any manner we can stimulate this instinct, new passages are opened for us into nature, the mind flows into and through things hardest and highest, and the metamorphosis is possible.«
241. “It is easy to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
242. "It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves."
243. "It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself."
244. "It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History."
245. "It is not length of life, but depth of life."
246. “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”
247. ”The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.”
248. "It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
249. »It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made, that we exist. That discovery is called the Fall of Man. Ever afterwards, we suspect our instruments. We have learned that we do not see directly, but mediately, and that we have no means of correcting these colored and distorting lenses which we are, or of computing the amount of their errors. Perhaps these subject-lenses have a creative power; perhaps there are no objects. Once we lived in what we saw; now, the rapaciousness of this new power, which threatens to absorb all things, engages us. Nature, art, persons, letters, religions, - objects, successively tumble in, and God is but one of its ideas. Nature and literature are subjective phenomena; every evil and every good thing is a shadow which we cast.«
250. ”I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past at my back.“
251. ”I wish to be a true and free man.”
252. "I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor."
253. ”I would study, I would know, I would admire for ever. These works of thought have been the entertainments of the human spirit in all ages.”
254. “Judge of your natural character by what you do in dreams.”
255. "Knowledge comes by eyes always open and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power."
256. "Knowledge exists to be imparted."
257. “Knowledge is the antidote to fear.”
258. “Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.”
259. “Knowledge is the only elegance.”
260. “Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.”
261. »Language is fossil poetry.«
262. “Language is the archives of history.... Language is fossil poetry.”
263. “Let man serve law for man; Live for friendship, live for love, For truth's and harmony's behoof; The state may follow how it can, As Olympus follows Jove.”
264. “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
265. “Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen.”
266. “Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.”
267. "Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is of infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses the sun and moon."
268. “Let us learn the revelation of all nature and thought; that the Highest dwells within us, that the sources of nature are in our own minds. As there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infinite heavens, so there is no bar or wall in the soul where we, the effect, cease, and God, the cause begins. Within us is the soul of the whole; the wise silence, the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally
related; the eternal One. When it breaks through our intellect, it is Genius; when it breaths through our will, it is Virtue; when it flows through our affections, it is Love.”
269. ”Let us treat men and women well; treat them as if they were real. Perhaps they are.”
270. ”Life is a festival only to the wise.”
271. “Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect.”
272. “Life is a progress, and not a station.”
273. “Life is a festival only to the wise.”
274. “Life is eating us up. We all shall be fables presently. Keep cool: it will be all one a hundred years hence. Life's well enough, but we shall be glad to get out of it, and they will all be glad to have us.”
275. ”Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.”
276. “Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.”
277. "Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give."
278. “Line in nature is not found; Unit and universe are round; In vain produced, all rays return; Evil will bless, and ice will burn.”
279. "Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries."
280. "If we live truly, we shall see truly."
281. “Love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.”
282. “Love is the bright foreigner, the foreign self.”
283. ”Love of beauty is Taste...The creation of beauty is Art.”
284. “Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the total worth of man.”
285. ”Make circumstances - all circumstances - conform to the law of your mind. Be always a king, and not they, and nothing shall hurt you.”
286. ”Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.”
287. ”Make yourself necessary to somebody.”
288. “Man is not order of nature, sack and sack, belly and members, link in a chain, nor any ignominious baggage, but a stupendous antagonism, a dragging together of the poles of the Universe. He betrays his relation to what is below him,--thick-skulled, small-brained, fishy, quadrumanous,--quadruped ill-disguised, hardly escaped into biped, and has paid for the new powers by loss of some of the old ones. But the lightning which explodes and fashions planets, maker of planet and suns, is in him.”
289. »Man is the dwarf of himself. Once he was permeated and dissolved by spirit. He filled nature with his overflowing currents. Out from him sprang the sun and moon; from man, the sun; from woman, the moon. The laws of his mind, the periods of his actions externized themselves into day and night, into the year and the seasons. But, having made for himself this huge shell, his waters retired; he no longer fills the veins and veinlets; he is shrunk to a drop. He sees, that the structure still fits him, but fits him colossally. Say, rather, once it fitted him, now it corresponds to him from far and on high. He adores timidly his own work. Now is man the follower of the sun, and woman the follower of the moon. Yet sometimes he starts in his slumber, and wonders at himself and his house, and muses strangely at the resemblance betwixt him and it. He perceives that if his law is still paramount, if still he have elemental power, if his word is sterling yet in nature, it is not conscious power, it is not inferior but superior to his will. It is Instinct.«
290. “Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.”
291. ”Man stands in strict connection with a higher fact never yet manifested. There is power over and behind us, and we are the channels of its communications . . . This open channel to the highest life is the first and last reality, so subtle, so quiet, yet so tenacious, that although I have never expressed the truth, and although I have never heard the expression of it from any other, I know that the whole truth is here for me.”
292. "Men lose their tempers in defending their taste."
293. ”Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.”
294. ”Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it.”
295. ”Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner.”
296. “Men lose their tempers in defending their taste.”
297. ”Men who know the same things are not long the best company for each other.”
298. “Money often costs too much.”
299. "Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine."
300. ”Music causes us to think eloquently.”
301. ”My chief want in life is someone who shall make me do what I can.”
302. “My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock, should find the time in my face.”
303. »My life is a May game, I will live as I like. I defy your strait-laced, weary, social ways and modes. Blue is the sky, green the fields and groves, fresh the springs, glad the rivers, and hospitable the splendor of sun and star. I will play my game out.«
304. “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”
305. “Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them.”
306. ”Nature and literature are subjective phenomena; every evil and every good thing is a shadow which we cast.”
307. “Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.”
308. ”Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul.”
309. ”Neither is a dictionary a bad book to read. There is no can’t in it, no excess of explanation, and it is full of suggestion, - the raw material of possible poems and histories.”
310. “No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.”
311. "No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back.
312. “No facts to me are sacred; none are profane.”
313. ”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 own constitution; the only wrong what is against it.”
314. "No man ever prayed heartily without learning something."
315. "No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it."
316. “None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.”
317. "No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can't dishearten it."
318. ”Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.”
319. ”Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.”
320. ”Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”
321. "Nothing external to you has any power over you."
322. ”Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
323. “Nothing is dead: men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and well, in some new and strange disguise. Jesus is not dead: he is very well alive: nor John, nor Paul, nor Mahomet, nor Aristotle; at times we believe we have seen them all, and could easily tell the names under which they go.”
324. “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”
325. "Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life."
326. ”Nothing is more vulgar than haste.”
327. “Nothing is rich but the inexhaustible wealth of nature. She shows us only surfaces, but she is a million fathoms deep.”
328. ”Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit.”
329. "Novels are useful as Bibles, if they teach you the secret, that the best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence."
330. "Oh man! There is no planet sun or star could hold you, if you but knew what you are."
331. "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."
332. “One definition of man is "an intelligence served by organs."”
333. ”One key, one solution to the mysteries of human condition, one solution to the old knots of fate, freedom and foreknowledge, exists, the propounding, namely, of the double consciousness. A man must ride alternately on the horses of his private and his public nature, as the equestrians in the circus throw themselves nimbly from horse to horse, or plant one foot on the back of one, and the other foot on the back of the other.”
334. “One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.“
335. ”One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty, another's ugliness; one man's wisdom, another's folly; as one beholds the same objects from a higher point.”
336. "Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor."
337. "Only those books come down which deserve to last . All the gilt edges, vellum and morocco, all the presentation copies to all the libraries will not preserve a book in circulation beyond its intrinsic date."
338. "Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds. Each man seeks those of different quality from his own, and such as are good of their kind; that is, he seeks other men, and the rest."
339. »Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.«
340. "Our best history is still poetry."
341. "Our best thoughts come from others."
342. "Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can."
343. "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."
344. “Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.”
345. "Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens."
346. "Out of love and hatred, out of earnings and borrowings and leadings and losses; out of sickness and pain; out of wooing and worshipping; out of traveling and voting and watching and caring; out of disgrace and contempt, comes our tuition in the serene and beautiful laws."
347. “Passion, thought a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.”
348. “Patience and fortitude conquer all things.”
349. "Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding."
350. "People only see what they are prepared to see."
351. ”People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.”
352. “People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never.”
353. ”Polarity is the law of all being. Superinduce the magnetism at one end of a needle, the opposite magnetism takes place at the other end. If the south attracts, the north repels.--To empty here, you must condense there. Light, shade; heat, cold; centrifugal, centripetal; action, reaction; if the mind idealizes at one end perfect goodness into God coexistently it abhors at the other end a Devil.”
354. ”Poverty, Frost, Famine, Rain, Disease, are the beadles and guardsmen that hold us to Common Sense.”
355. “Pride ruined the angels.”
356. "Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it."
357. "Real action is in silent moments."
358. "Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude."
359. ”Right is more beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with universal wisdom.”
360. ”Science does not know its debt to imagination.”
361. ”Self-trust is the essence of heroism.”
362. ”Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
363. "Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. 'Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time."
364. “Skepticism is slow suicide.”
365. "Society always consists in the greatest part, of young and foolish persons."
366. ”Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members . . . Self-reliance is its aversion.”
367. "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs."
368. "Society is a hospital of incurables."
369. "Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding."
370. “Society is infested by persons who, seeing that the sentiments please, counterttfeit the expression of them. These we call sentimentalists - talkers who mistake the description for the thing, saying for having.”
371. “Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them.”
372. "Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal."
373. “Some books leave us free and some books make us free.”
374. ”Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away.”
375. “Some of your hurt you have cured,And the sharpest you still have survived,But what torments of grief you enduredFrom evil that never arrived.”
376. ”Some thoughts always find us young and keep us so.”
377. "Some thoughts always find us young, and keep us so. Such a thought is the love of the universal and eternal beauty."
378. “Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.”
379. ”So of cheerfulness, or a good temper - the more it is spent, the more of it remains.”
380. “Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.”
381. "Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny."
382. "Spartans, stoics, heroes, saints and gods use a short and powerful speech."
383. ”Speak the truth, and all nature and all spirits help you with unexpected furtherance.”
384. “Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.”
385. ”Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until, at last, rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity.”
386. ”Star by star, world by world, system by system shall be crushed, -- but I shall live.”
387. ”Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.”
388. "Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,Then beauty is its own excuse for being:Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!I never sought to ask, I never knew:But, in my simple ignorance supposeThe selfsame power that brought me there brought you."
389. ”That is always best which gives me to myself. The sublime is excited in me by the great stoical doctrine, Obey thyself. That which shows God in me, fortifies me.”
390. “...that is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what is unusual, the wise man wonders at the usual.”
391. "That man is idle who can do something better."
392. ”That mind is best which is most impressionable.”
393. "That which builds is better than that which is built."
394. “That which we call sin in others is experiment for us.”
395. "That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say; even though we may repeat the words ever so often."
396. “The act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one.”
397. "The angels are so enamoured of the language that is spoken in heaven, that they will not distort their lips with the hissing and unmusical dialects of men, but speak their own, whether there be any who understand it or not."
398. “The artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like the bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.”
399. ”The beautiful rests on the foundations of the necessary.”
400. “The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.”
401. "The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine."
402. ”The best university that can be recommended to a man of ideas is the gauntlet of the mob.”
403. “The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution.”
404. ”The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul. Time and space are but psychological colors which the eye makes, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury if it be anything more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and becoming.”
405. "The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic."
406. "The child with his sweet pranks, the fool of his senses, commanded by every sight and sound, without any power to compare and rank his sensations, abandoned to a whistle or a painted chip, to a lead dragoon, or a gingerbread dog, individualizing everything, generalizing nothing, delighted with every new thing, lies down at night overpowered by the fatigue, which this day of continual pretty madness has incurred. But Nature hs answered her purpose with the curly, dimpled lunatic. She has tasked every faculty, and has secured the symmetrical growth of the bodily frame, by all these attitudes and exertions --an end of the first importance, which could not be trusted to any care less perfect than her own."
407. "The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts."
408. ”The conscious utterance of thought, by speech or action, to any end, is art.”
409. ”The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language.”
410. "The course of everything goes to teach us faith."
411. ”The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.”
412. “The efforts which we make to escape our destiny only serve to lead us into it.”
413. ”The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”
414. ”The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry.”
415. ”The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world...Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.”
416. “The fable of Proteus has a cordial truth. A leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world.”
417. ”The faith that stands on authority is not faith.”
418. “The finest people marry the two sexes in their own person. Hermaphrodite is then the symbol of the finished soul.”
419. "The foundations of a person are not in matter but in spirit."
420. “The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchant is a merchant.”
421. “The good rain, like the bad preacher, does not know when to leave off.”
422. ”The great make us feel, first of all, the indifference of circumstances. They call into activity the higher perceptions and subdue the low habits of comfort and luxury; but the higher perceptions find their objects everywhere; only the low habits need palaces and banquets.”
423. "The greatest genius is the most indebted person."
424. "The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it. "
425. "The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue; and no genius can long or often utter anything which is not invited and gladly entertained by men around him."
426. ”The heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one.”
427. ”The hero is not fed on sweets, Daily his own heart he eats; Chambers of the great are jails, And head-winds right for royal sails. Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake.”
428. »The highest revelation is that God is in every man.«
429. “The influence of the senses has, in most men, overpowered the mind to that degree, that the walls of time and space have come to look real and insurmountable; and to speak with levity of these limits is, in the world, the sign of insanity. Yet time and space are but inverse measures of the force of the soul.”
430. “The intellectual man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge.”
431. “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
432. “The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own. The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outward to new and larger circles, and that without end. The extent to which this generation of circles, wheel without wheel, will go, depends on the force or truth of the individual soul. For, it is the inert effort of each thought having formed itself into a circular wave of circumstance, as, for instance, an empire, rules of an art, a local usage, a religious rite, to heap itself on that ridge, and to solidify, and hem in the life. But if the soul is quick and strong it bursts over that boundary on all sides, and expands another orbit on the great deep, which also runs up into a high wave, with attempt again to stop and to bind. But the heart refuses to be imprisoned; in its first and narrowest pulses, it already tends outward with a vast force, and to immense and innumerable expansions.”
433. "The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is -- Imbecility; imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and, even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity, custom, and fear."
434. "The laws of each are convertible into the laws of any other."
435. ”The leaves are falling, falling as from way off,as though far gardens withered in the skies;they are falling with denying gestures.And in the nights the heavy earth is fallingfrom all the stars down into loneliness.We all are falling. This hand falls.And look at others: it is in them all.And yet there is one who holds this fallingendlessly gently in his hands.”
436. ”The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues, the better we like him.”
437. ”The less government we have the better.”
438. "The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction."
439. ”The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.”
440. “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.”
441. ”The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight.”
442. “The man in only half himself, the other half is his expression.”
443. “The man, who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight, has been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the world.”
444. "The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting."
445. "The middle region of our being is the temperate zone. We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between these extremes is the equator of life, of thought of spirit, of poetry-- a narrow belt."
446. "The mind does not create what it perceives, any more than the eye creates the rose."
447. "The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars."
448. “The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennuis, vanish -- all duties even.”
449. "The next best thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one."
450. ”The ocean is a large drop; a drop is a small ocean.”
451. ”The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul.”
452. ”The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.”
453. ”The only sin we never forgive each other is difference of opinion.”
454. “The only true gift is a portion of yourself.”
455. »The perpetual admonition of nature to us, is, 'The world is new, untried. Do not believe the past. I give you the universe a virgin to-day.'«
456. “The philosophy of waiting is sustained by all the oracles of the universe.”
457. ”The planet makes itself. The animal cell makes itself;--then, what it wants. Every creature--wren or dragon--shall make its own lair. As soon as there is life, there is self-direction, and absorbing and using of material. Life is freedom,--life in the direct ratio of its amount.”
458. ”The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.”
459. “The profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader. The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.”
460. "The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it."
461. “The quality of imagination is to flow, and not to freeze.... For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead. “
462. ”The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.”
463. "There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrate to some stroke of the imagination."
464. "There is a crack in everything God has made."
465. “There is creative reading as well as creative writing.”
466. "There is always a best way of doing everything."
467. “There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.”
468. “There is always safety in valor.”
469. “There is a tendency for things to right themselves.”
470. “There is no beautifier of complexion or form of behavior like the wish to scatter joy, and not pain, around us.”
471. ”There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. . . / Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.”
472. »There is no great and no small To the Soul that maketh all: And where it cometh, all things are; And it cometh everywhere.«
473. “There is no knowledge that is not power.”
474. ”There is a remedy for every wrong and a satisfaction for every soul.”
475. ”There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfillment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.”
476. "There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere."
477. ”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 taught, 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 part to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.”
478. ”There are people who have an appetite for grief; pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain. They have mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on poisoned bread, natures so doomed that no prosperity can sooth their ragged and dishevelled desolation.”
479. ”There are thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls; we are not the less drawn to them.”
480. “There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says, "Anywhere but here."”
481. “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 that 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.”
482. “There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.”
483. “There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and squirrel.”
484. “There is no knowledge that is not power.”
485. “There is no line that does not return; I suppose the mathematicians will tell us that what are called straight lines are lines with long curves, and that there is no straight line in nature.”
486. “There is no more welcome gift to man than a new symbol.”
487. "There is no one who does not exaggerate!"
488. “There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer.”
489. “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 be-fallen 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.”
490. "There is one topic peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I beseech you, by all angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning."
491. “There is properly no history; only biography.”
492. "There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world."
493. “There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep.”
494. “The reason why men do not obey us is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.”
495. “The revelation of thought takes man out of servitude into freedom.”
496. “The reward of a thing well done is to have it done.”
497. "The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it... ''Beware of me,'' it says, ''but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.''"
498. "The secret in education lies in respecting the student."
499. “The sense of the world is short, / long and various the report,- / To love and be beloved; / Men and gods have not outlearned it, / And how oft soe'er they've turned it, / 'Tis not to be improved.”
500. “The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.”
501. »The secret of poetry is never explained, - is always new. We have not got farther than mere wonder at the delicacy of the touch, and the eternity it inherits.«
502. ”The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause.”
503. "The sky is the daily bread of the eyes."
504. “The solid, solid universeIs pervious to Love;With bandaged eyes he never errs,Around, below, above,His blinding lightHe flingeth whiteOn God's and Satan's brood,And reconcilesBy mystic wilesThe evil and the good.”
505. ”The soul's advances are not made by gradation, such as can be represented by motion in a straight line; but rather by ascension of state, such as can be represented by metamorphosis, -- from the egg to the worm, from the worm to the fly.”
506. ”The soul's communication of truth is the highest event in nature . . . and this communication is an influx of the Divine Mind into our mind . . . Every moment when the individual feels invaded by it is memorable.”
507. ”The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. We know truth when we see it…”
508. "The soul of God is poured into the world through the thoughts of men."
509. ”The superior mind will find itself equally at odds with the evils of society, and with the projects that are offered to relieve them.”
510. "The thirst for adventure is the vent which Destiny offers; a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new country, speak to the imagination and offer swing and play to the confined powers."
511. "The true poem is the poet's mind
512. “The universal does not attract us until housed in an individual.”
513. ”The universe is the bride of the soul.”
514. ”The Universe is the externalization of the soul.”
515. “The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.”
516. “The water drowns ship and sailor, like a grain of dust. But learn to swim, trim your bark, and the wave which drowned it will be cloven by it, and carry it, like its own foam, a plume and a power.”
517. ”The whole world is a series of balanced antagonisms.”
518. "The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool."
519. “The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.”
520. “The youth, intoxicated with his admiration of a hero, fails to see, that it is only a projection of his own soul, which he admires.”
521. “Things are in the saddle, / And ride mankind.”
522. “Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.”
523. "Things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary."
524. ”This energy (psychic power) does not descend into individual life on any other condition than entire possession. It comes to the lowly and simple; it comes to whomsoever will put off what is foreign and proud; it comes as insight; it comes as serenity and grandeur.”
525. “This gives force to the strong - that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action.”
526. ”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...”
527. “This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”
528. “Thou art to me a delicious torment.”
529. “Thought is the blossom, language the bud, action the fruit behind."
530. “Thought is the seed of action.”
531. “Thought takes a man out of servitude into freedom.”
532. "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not."
533. ”Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.”
534. ”'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakenly meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.”
535. “Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions; the surest poison is time.”
536. ”To be great is to be misunderstood.”
537. “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.”
538. "Today is a king in disguise."
539. "To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven."
540. ”To fill the hour, that is happiness; to fill the hour, and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval.”
541. ”To live without duties is obscene.”
542. “To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child. 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.”
543. “To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty . . . it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again..”
544. "To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light."
545. »To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For the eye is fastened on the life, and slights the circumstance. Every chemical substance, every plant, every animal in its growth, teaches the unity of cause, the variety of appearance.«
546. "To think is to act."
547. “Traveling is a fool's paradise.... I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there besides me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.”
548. "Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places."
549. ”Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.”
550. ”Truth is always present; it only needs to lift the iron lids of the mind's eye to read its oracles.”
551. ”Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.”
552. "Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men."
553. "Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs."
554. “Truth is too simple for us; we do not like those who unmask our illusions.”
555. "Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great."
556. "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string."
557. "Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason."
558. “Vigour is contagious, and whatever makes us either think or feel strongly ads to our power and enlarges our field of action.”
559. “Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.”
560. “We aim above the mark to hit the mark.”
561. ”We animate what we can, and we see only what we animate.”
562. “We are always getting ready to live, but never living.”
563. "We are ashamed of our thoughts and often see them brought forth by others."
564. “We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears beauty.”
565. ’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.”
566. "We are the prisoners of ideas."
567. "We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it."
568. ”We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe: can we not take the leap?”
569. “We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.”
570. ”We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.”
571. ”We are wiser than we know.”
572. “We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes.”
573. ”We become what we think about all day long.”
574. ”We boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if we have broken any idols, it is merely through a transfer of idolatry.”
575. ”We boil at different degrees.”
576. »We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.«
577. ”We cannot see things that stare us in the face until the hour comes that the mind is ripened.”
578. “We change, whether we like it or not.”
579. “We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.”
580. "We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten."
581. ”We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten.”
582. ”We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history.”
583. ”We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.”
584. "We gain the strength of the temptation we resist."
585. "Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods loved him because men hated him."
586. "What a new face courage puts on everything!"
587. ”What if you shall come to discern that the play and playground of all this pompous history are radiations from yourself, and that the sun borrows his beams? What terrible questions we are learning to ask!”
588. "We know better than we do. We do not yet possess ourselves..."
589. ”We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.”
590. "We lie in the lap of immense intelligence."
591. ”We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal One.”
592. ”We must be our own before we can be another's.”
593. ”We walk alone in the world. Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables.”
594. “What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.”
595. “Whatever limits us we call Fate.”
596. “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.”
597. ”What is the hardest thing in the world? To think.”
598. ”What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour.”
599. ”Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.”
600. "Whatever limits us we call fate."
601. "Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them."
602. “What's a book? Everything or nothing. The eye that sees it is all.”
603. “What is the hardest task in the world? To Think.”
604. "What is the imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy; only the precursor of the reason."
605. "What lies behind us / And what lies before us / Are tiny matters compared / To what lies within Us."
606. “What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.”
607. "Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves."
608. "What terrible questions we are learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, cities, and men were swallowed up, and all trace of them gone. We are coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men's minds all vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were framed upon."
609. ”What your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul's emphasis is always right.”
610. ”Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.”
611. “When a man is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something.”
612. "Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished."
613. ”When I find in people narrow religion, I find also narrow reading.”
614. ”When I see changed men, I shall look for a changed world.”
615. ”When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”
616. ”When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.”
617. “When life is true to the poles of nature, the streams of truth will roll through us in song.”
618. "When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it."
619. “When the eyes say one thing and the tongue another, the practiced person relies on the language of the first.”
620. ”When we see those whom it inhabits, we are appraised of new degrees of greatness. From that inspiration the man comes back with a changed tone.”
621. ”Whilst a man seeks good ends, he is strong by the whole strength of nature . . . The perception of this law of laws awakens in the mind a sentiment which we call the religious sentiment, and which makes our highest happiness. Wonderful is its power to charm and to command. It is a mountain air.”
622. ”Who can blame men for seeking excitement. They are polar & would you have them sleep in a dull eternity of equilibrium? Religion, love, ambition, money, war, brandy, some fierce antagonism must break the round of perfect circulation or no spark, no joy, no event can be.”
623. “Whoever fights, whoever falls,Justice conquers evermore.”
624. ”Whoever lives must rise & grow.”
625. “Who gave thee, O Beauty,The keys of this breast,--Too credulous loverOf blest and unblest?Say, when in lapsed agesThee knew I of old?Or what was the serviceFor which I was sold?”
626. “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it bee goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself and you shall have the suffrage of the world.”
627. “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.”
628. ”Why should we be cowed by the name of Action?...The rich mind lies in the sun and sleeps, and is Nature. To think is to act.”
629. “Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.”
630. "Words are alive; cut them and they bleed."
631. “Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance.”
632. ”You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.”
633. “Your fate is what you do, because first it is what you are.”
634. ”You think it is because I have an income which exempts me from your day-labour, that I waste (as you call it) my time in sun-gazing and star-gazing. You do not know me. If my debts, as they threaten, should consume what money I have, I should live just as I do now: I should eat worse food, and wear a coarser coat, and should wander in a potato patch instead of in the wood - but it is I, and not my twelve hundred dollars a year, that love God.”