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| Ralph Waldo Emerson
'Tis the good reader that makes the good book. 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. A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us. A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic. A fly is as untamable as a hyena. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. A friend is a person before whom I may think aloud. A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.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. A man in debt is so far a slave. A man is known by the books he reads. Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done somethingstrange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. 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 had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of you first. All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. All mankind love a lover. 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. All the great speakers were bad speakers first. An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man. An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory. And lift them to the sky. Art is a jealous mistress, and if a man has a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider. As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey. As we grow old, the beauty steals inward. Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss. Be Silly. Be honest. Be kind.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. Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them. Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Body: A thing of shreds and patches, borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors and a misfit from the start. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think. Children are all foreigners. Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance. Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass. Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live. Coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate fine qualities. Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold. Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors. Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. all life is an experiment. Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Each man has his own vocation; his talent is his call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. Each of the arts whose office is to refine, purify, adorn, embellish and grace life is under the patronage of a muse, no god being found worthy to preside over them. Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding. Every great institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man. His character determines the character of the organization. Every hero becomes a bore at last. Every man I meet is in some way my superior. Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors. Every man passes his life in the search after friendship.Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every principle is a war-note. Whoever attempts to carry out the rule of right and love and freedom must take his life in his hand. Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good. Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society. Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence. Fear is an instructor of great sagacity, and the herald of all revolutions.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. Flowers ... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. For what avail the plow or sail, Or land, or life, if freedom fail? Free should be the scholar - free and brave.Genius always finds itself a century too early. Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get. Give all to love; obey thy heart. Go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path. God enters by a private door into every individual. God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please; you can never have both. Great are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world. 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. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself. He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear. He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, while he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere. Health and appetite impart the sweetness to sugar, bread and meat. Hitch your wagon to a star. I awoke with devout thanksgiving for my friends.I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. If a man can... make a better mousetrap, the world will make a beaten path to his door. If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, tho it be in the woods. If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, tho' he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.Imagination is not a talent of some men, but is the health of every man. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended. 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. In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours; whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and identities in all the religions of humanity. In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs. Intellect annuls Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free. It is not length of life, but depth of life.It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. It is the privilege of any human work which is well done to invest the doer with a certain haughtiness. It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'always do what you are afraid to do.' Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him. Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day. Life is a successon of lessons, which must be lived to be understood. Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is to you.Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim. Men are what their mothers made them. 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. Money is the representative of a certain quantity of corn or other commodity. It is so much warmth, so much bread. My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same. Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character. New York is a sucked orange. 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. No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character. Not gold, but only man can make a people great and strong; men who, for truth and honor's sake, stand fast and suffer long. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success. Patience and fortitude conquer all things. Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character. Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit in every work of art. Reality is a sliding door. Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude. Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry. Shall meet him everywhere. So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person's genius is confined to a very few hours. Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense. Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; it seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends. Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis. Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being. The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles. The ancestor of every action is a thought. The art of getting rich consists not in industry, much less in saving, but in a better order, in timeliness, in being at the right spot. The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence. The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny. The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. 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. The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. The faith that stands on authority is not faith. The finest and noblest ground on which people can live is truth; the real with the real; a ground on which nothing is assumed. The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him. The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant. The greatest gift is a portion of thyself. The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. 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. The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers. The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later. The only gift is a portion of thyself. The only way to have a friend is to be one.The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it. 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. The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of warThe religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.The sower may mistake and sow his peas crookedly; the peas make no mistake, but come up and show his line. The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means to an education. The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society. The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain. The world is full of judgment-days, and into every assembly that a man enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged and stamped. The years teach much which the days never knew.The years teach what the days never know. There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant. There is a tendency for things to right themselves. 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, or for worse. 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. There is no knowledge that is not power. There is properly no history; only biography.There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep. They can conquer who believe they can. He has not learned the first lesson in life who does not every day surmount a fear. Think, and be careful what thou art within; For there is sin in the desire of sin; Think, and be thankful, in a different case; For there is grace in the desire of grace. This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it. To be great is to be misunderstood. To be simple is to be great.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. To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole
world burns and sparkles
with light.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. Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be. Truth is beautiful within and without, forevermore.Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. Vigor is contagious, and whatever makes us either think or feel strongly adds to our power and enlarges our field of action. War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man. Washington, where an insignificant individual may trespass on a nation's time. We are reformers in the spring and summer, but in autumn we stand by the old. Reformers in the morning, and conservers at night. We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing. We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of 4 or 500 pages. 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. We judge a man's wisdom by his hope. We judge of man's wisdom by his hope.What I need is someone who will make me do what I can. What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered. What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour. When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers. When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and the purity of its heart. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it. When you strike at a king, you must kill him. Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman. Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change. You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity. |
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