Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history isto be read and written.
The Times are the masquerade of the eternities; trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise; the receptacle in which the Past leaves its history; the quarry out of which the genius of today is building up the Future.
The whole value of history, of biography, is to increase my self-trust, by demonstrating what man can be and do.
Why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth, of the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board.
Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena.
The reason why any one refuses his assent to your opinion, or his aid to your benevolent design, is in you: he refuses to accept you as a bringer of truth, because, though you think you have it, he feels that you have it not. You have not given him the authentic sign.
I cannot often enough say, that a man is only a relative and representative nature. Each is a hint of the truth, but far enough from being that truth, which yet he quite newly and inevitably suggests to us. If I seek it in him, I shall not find it.
Every man finds a sanction for his simplest claims and deeds, in decisions of his own mind, which he calls Truth and Holiness.
Truth has not single victories; all things are its organs, – not only dust and stones, but errors and lies.
But speak the truth, and all nature and all spirits help you with unexpected furtherance. Speak the truth, and all things alive orbrute are vouchers, and the very roots of the grass underground there do seem to stir and move to bear you witness.
We know truth when we see it, from opinion, as we know when we are awake that we are awake.
The solar system has no anxiety about its reputation, and the credit of truth and honesty is as safe; nor have I any fear that a skeptical bias can be given by leaning hard on the sides of fate, of practical power, or of trade, which the doctrine of Faith cannot down-weigh.
Aristotle and Plato are reckoned the respective heads of two schools. A wise man will see that Aristotle platonizes.
Things bring their own philosophy with them, that is, prudence.
The connection between our knowledge and the abyss of being is still real, and the explication must be not less magnificent.
Plato is philosophy, and philosophy, Plato, – at once the glory and the shame of mankind, since neither Saxon nor Roman have availed to add any idea to his categories.
When at last in a race a new principle appears, an idea – that conserves it; ideas only save races.
We are the prisoners of ideas. They catch us up for moments into their heaven, and so fully engage us, that we take no thought forthe morrow, gaze like children, without an effort to make them our own.
Let ideas establish their legitimate sway again in society, let life be fair and poetic, and the scholars will gladly be lovers, citizens, and philanthropists.
General ideas are essences. They are our gods: they round and ennoble the most partial and sordid way of living.