Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The mason asks but a narrow shelf to spring his brick from; man requires only an infinitely narrower one to spring his arch of faith from.
The bad are frequently good enough to let you see how bad they are, but the good as frequently endeavor to get between you and themselves.
Such is the never-failing beauty and accuracy of language, the most perfect art in the world; the chisel of a thousand years retouches it.
In all perception of the truth there is a divine ecstasy, an inexpressible delirium of joy, as when a youth embraces his betrothed virgin.
The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures.
How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
We never exchange more than three words with a Friend in our lives on that level to which our thoughts and feelings almost habitually rise.
The world, which the Greeks called Beauty, has been made such by being gradually divested of every ornament which was not fitted to endure.
As in many countries precious metals belong to the crown, so here more precious natural objects of rare beauty should belong to the public.
There are two classes of men called poets. The one cultivates life, the other art,... one satisfies hunger, the other gratifies the palate.
Whatever has not come under the sway of man is wild. In this sense original and independent men are wild - not tamed and broken by society.
Every man is entitled to come to Cattle-Show, even a transcendentalist; and for my part I am more interested in the men than in the cattle.
I suppose that the great questions of "Fate, Freewill, Foreknowledge Absolute," which used to be discussed at Concord, are still unsettled.
The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor
Where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at length blows it down.
No human being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure that he does.
While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?
The same soil is good for men and for trees. A man's health requires as many acres of meadow to his prospect as his farm does loads of muck.
It must be confessed that horses at present work too exclusively for men, rarely men for horses; and the brute degenerates in man's society.
The fact is, mental philosophy is very like Poverty, which, you know, begins at home; and indeed, when it goes abroad, it is poverty itself.
For the most part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our occasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction.
Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought, go about doing good.
Today you may write a chapter on the advantages of traveling, and tomorrow you may write another chapter on the advantages of not traveling.
The merely political aspect of the land is never very cheering; men are degraded when considered as the members of a political organization.
Though the youth at last grows indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indifferent, but are forever on the side of the most sensitive.
I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.
It would be no reproach to a philosopher, that he knew the future better than the past, or even than the present. It is better worth knowing.
We saw men haying far off in the meadow, their heads waving like the grass which they cut. In the distance the wind seemed to bend all alike.
Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.
Life is so short that it is not wise to take roundabout ways, nor can we spend much time in waiting.... We have not got half-way to dawn yet.
That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.
It is no more dusky in ordinary nights than our mind's habitual atmosphere, and the moonlight is as bright as our most illuminatedmoments are.
I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.
Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails.
I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor.
Nature is fair in proportion as the youth is pure. The heavens and the earth are one flower ; the earth is the calyx, the heavens the corolla.
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.
Direct your eye inward, and you'll find / A thousand regions in your mind / Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be / Expert in home-cosmography
All these sounds, the crowing of cocks, the baying of dogs, and the hum of insects at noon, are the evidence of nature's health orsound state.
The fact which the politician faces is merely that there is less honor among thieves than was supposed, and not the fact that theyare thieves.
The eye which can appreciate the naked and absolute beauty of a scientific truth is far more rare than that which is attracted by a moral one.
How shall we account for our pursuits, if they are original? We get the language with which to describe our various lives out of acommon mint.
The inhabitants of the Cape generally do not complain of their "soil," but will tell you that it is good enough for them to dry their fish on.
In some countries a hunting parson is no uncommon sight. Such a one might make a good shepherd's dog, but is far from being the Good Shepherd.
For a man needs only to be turned around once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost...Not 'til we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.
I come to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home. I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful.
Show me a man who feels bitterly toward John Brown, and let me hear what noble verse he can repeat. He'll be as dumb as if his lips were stone.
If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me.
I often visited a particular plant four or five miles distant, half a dozen times within a fortnight, that I might know exactly when it opened.
It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.