The miracles of genius always rest on profound convictions which refuse to be analyzed.
Every wall is a door.
Language is the archives of history.
Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.
If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era?
He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds.
The masses have no habit of self reliance or original action.
Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.
Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
It is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts.
Society is a hospital of incurables.
Mr. Emerson visited Thoreau at the jail, and the meeting between the two philosophers must have been interesting and somewhat dramatic. The account of the meeting was told me by Miss Maria Thoreau Henry Thoreaus auntHenry, why are you here? Waldo, why are you not here?
Necessity does everything well.
Earth laughs in flowers.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.
Men lose their tempers in defending their taste.
Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.
The artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like the bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.
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