Quote collection
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"Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession."
"It is not length of life, but depth of life."
"In the woods we return to reason and faith."
"Improve your spare moments and they will become the brightest gems in your life."
"The sky is the daily bread of the eyes."
"The shot heard round the world."
"Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble."
"Fear always springs from ignorance."
"Let us be silent — so we may hear the whisper of the gods."
"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being."
"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string."
"Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful."
"All inquiry into antiquity, all curiosity respecting the Pyramids, the excavated cities, Stonehenge, the Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis,--is the desire to do away this wild, savage, and preposterous There and Then, and introduce in its place the Here and Now."
"We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases."
"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."
"The dice of God are always loaded."
"Some eyes threaten like a loaded and levelled pistol, and others are as insulting as hissing or kicking; some have no more expression than blueberries, while others are as deep as a well which you can fall into."
"If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads."
"Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar."
"How cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew!"