Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward; in talent from without inward.
When science is learned in love, and its powers are wielded by love, they will appear the supplements and continuations of the material creation.
Explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatize or accept another's dogmatism.
Teach me your mood, O patient stars. Who climb each night, the ancient sky. leaving on space no shade, no scars, no trace of age, no fear to die.
It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.
Much of the wisdom of the world is not wisdom, and the most illuminated class of men are no doubt superior to literary fame, and are not writers.
It is the last lesson of modern science, that the highest simplicity of structure is produced, not by few elements, but by the highest complexity.
And yet--it is not beauty that inspires the deepest passion. Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait. Beauty, without expression, tires.
It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.
Every man should let out all the length of all the reigns; should find or make a frank and healthy expression of what force and meaning is in him.
Vivacity, leadership, must be had, and we are not allowed to be nice in choosing. We must fetch the pump with dirty water, if clean cannot be had.
The society of the energetic class, in their friendly and festive meetings, is full of courage, and of attempts, which intimidatethe pale scholar.
The sermon which I write inquisitive of truth is good a year after, but that which is written because a sermon must be writ is musty the next day.
Heaven walks among us ordinarily muffled in such triple or tenfold disguises that the wisest are deceived and no one suspects the days to be gods.
There is no event greater in life than the appearance of new persons about our hearth, except it be the progress of the characterwhich draws them.
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?
We call the beautiful the highest, because it appears to us the golden mean, escaping the dowdiness of the good and the heartlessness of the true.
For this present, hard Is the fortune of the bard, Born out of time; All his accomplishment, From Nature's utmost treasure spent, Booteth not him.
The difference between Talent and Genius is that Talent says things which he has never heard but once, and Genius things which he has never heard.
The uses of travel are occasional, and short; but the best fruit it finds, when it finds it, is conversation; and this is a main function of life.
The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things.
But whoso is heroic must find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds.
When I walk up the piazza of Santa Croce I feel as if it were not a Florentine nor an European church but a church built by and for the human race.
The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder.
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.
We are thus assisted by natural objects in the expression of particular meanings. But how great a language to convey such pepper-corn informations!
If you criticize a fine genius, the odds are that you are out of your reckoning, and, instead of the poet, are censuring your owncaricature of him.
But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things.
Underneath the inharmonious and trivial particulars, is a musical perfection, the Ideal journeying always with us, the heaven without rent or seam.
I think no virtue goes with size;The reason of all cowardiceIs, that men are overgrown,And, to be valiant, must come downTo the titmouse dimension.
Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.
In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any person should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged to all who could behold it.
Among the map makers of each generation are the risk takers, those who see the opportunities, seize the moment and expand man's vision of the future
A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.
Man is physical as well as metaphysical, a thing of shreds and patches, borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors, and a misfit from the start.
Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.
Had I but written as many odes in praise of Muhammad and Ali as I have composed for King Mahmud, they would have showered a hundred blessings on me.
Nature does not cocker us: we are children, not pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws.
The world proceeds from the same spirit as the body of man. It is a remoter and inferior incarnation of God, a projection of God in the unconscious.
Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or are said to have the same blood?
Men do not believe in the power of education. We do not think we can speak to divine sentiments in man, and we do not try. We renounce all high aims.
Chiefly the sea-shore has been the point of departure to knowledge, as to commerce. The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.
I do not wonder at a snowflake, a shell, a summer landscape, or the glory of the stars; but at the necessity of beauty under which the universe lies.
For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends.
Then climate is a great impediment to idle persons; we often resolve to give up the care of the weather, but still we regard the clouds and the rain.
If we must accept fate we are not less compelled to affirm liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the power of character.
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.
It is much better to learn the elements of geology, of botany, or ornithology and astronomy by word of mouth from a companion than dully from a book.
Thoughts come into our minds by avenues which we never left open, and thoughts go out of our minds through avenues which we never voluntarily opened.
These arts open great gates of a future, promising to make the world plastic and to lift human life out of its beggary to a god- like ease and power.