The philanthropists inquire whether Transcendentalism does not mean sloth: they had as lief hear that their friend is dead, as that he is a Transcendentalist; for then is he paralyzed, and can never do anything for humanity.
Always do what you are afraid to do.
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
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.
The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn.
Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right.
Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.
Nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere.
When the spirit is not master of the world, then it is its dupe.
The great will not condescend to take anything seriously.
I see not any road of perfect peace which a man can walk but after the counsel of his own bosom.
I see it only that thyself is here, and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels and the supreme being shall not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest.
Conservatives and Progressives. These two parties, which divide our government – and every other government – have been fighting for control of the world from the very beginning. History is the chronicle of their battles: between nobles and commoners, rulers and rebels, old traditions and new ideas, the rich and the poor. As the world turns, one side gets the upper hand, then the other, and back again. Only the names change.
The beauty of nature re-forms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation.
Abundance is not a result you create. It is an existing state you recognize. We ask for long life, but ’tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.
If utterance is denied, the thought lies like a burden on the man.