Great Throughts Treasury

"Two persons love in one another the future good which they aid one another to unfold."

"Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow."

"We are not anxious to prove that there is as yet much American literature. Of those who think and write among us in the methods and of the thoughts of Europe, we are not impatient; if their minds are still best adapted to such food and such action. If their books express life of mind and character in graceful forms, they are good and we like them."

"We doubt not the destiny of our country ? that she is to accomplish great things for human nature, and be the mother of a nobler race than the world has yet known. But she has been so false to the scheme made out at her nativity, that it is now hard to say which way that destiny points."

"We need to hear the excuses men make to themselves for their worthlessness."

"We will worship by impromptu symbols, till the religion is framed for all Humanity. The beauty grows around us daily, the trees are now all in blossom and some of the vines; there is a Crown Imperial just in perfection, to which I paid my evening worship by the light of the fire, which reached to us, and there are flashes of lightening too. But I do not like the lightening so well as once, having been in too great danger. Yet just now a noble flash falls upon my paper, it ought to have noble thoughts to illumine, instead of these little nothings, but indeed to-night I write only to say: thou dear, dear friend, and we must meet soon."

"Truth is the nursing mother of genius. No man can be absolutely true to himself, eschewing cant, compromise, servile imitation, and complaisance, without becoming original, for there is in every creature a fountain of life which, if not choked back by stones and other dead rubbish, will create a fresh atmosphere, and bring to life fresh beauty. And it is the same with the nation as with the individual man."

"Were the destiny of woman thus exactly marked out, did she invariably retain the shelter of a parent?s or guardian?s roof till she married, did marriage give her a sure home and a protector, were she never liable to be made a widow, or, if so, sure of finding immediate protection from a brother or new husband, so that she might never be forced to stand alone one moment, and were her mind given for this world only, with no faculties capable of eternal growth and infinite improvement, we would still demand of her a far wider and more generous culture than is proposed by those who so anxiously define her sphere."

"We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to Woman as freely as to Man. Were this done, and a slight temporary fermentation allowed to subside, we should see crystallizations more pure and of more various beauty. We believe the divine energy would pervade nature to a degree unknown in the history of former ages, and that no discordant collision, but a ravishing harmony of the spheres, would ensue. Yet, then and only then will mankind be ripe for this, when inward and outward freedom for Woman as much as for Man shall be acknowledged as a right, not yielded as a concession."

"What a difference it makes to come home to a child!"

"What concerns me now is that my life be a beautiful, powerful, in a word, a complete life of its kind."

"What suits Great Britain, with her insular position and consequent need to concentrate and intensify her life, her limited monarchy, and spirit of trade, does not suit a mixed race, continually enriched with new blood from other stocks the most unlike that of our first descent, with ample field and verge enough to range in and leave every impulse free, and abundant opportunity to develop a genius, wide and full as our rivers, flowery, luxuriant and impassioned as our vast prairies, rooted in strength as the rocks on which the Puritan fathers landed."

"What I mean by the Muse is that unimpeded clearness of the intuitive powers, which a perfectly truthful adherence to every admonition of the higher instincts would bring to a finely organized human being. It may appear as prophecy or as poesy. ... and should these faculties have free play, I believe they will open new, deeper and purer sources of joyous inspiration than have as yet refreshed the earth. Let us be wise, and not impede the soul. Let her work as she will. Let us have one creative energy, one incessant revelation. Let it take what form it will, and let us not bind it by the past to man or woman, black or white."

"What woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely, and unimpeded to unfold such powers as were given her when we left our common home."

"Whatever the soul knows how to seek, it cannot fail to obtain. This is the law and the Prophets. Knock and it shall be opened; seek and ye shall find. It is demonstrated; it is a maxim."

"What Woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded."

"When I saw it, the damage was severe... It really fried the unit."

"When not one man, in the million, shall I say? no, not in the hundred million, can rise above the belief that Woman was made for Man, ? when such traits as these are daily forced upon the attention, can we feel that Man will always do justice to the interests of Woman? Can we think that he takes a sufficiently discerning and religious view of her office and destiny ever to do her justice, except when prompted by sentiment ? accidentally or transiently?"

"When your dreams tire, they go underground and out of kindness that's where they stay."

"When people keep telling you that you can't do a thing, you kind of like to try it."

"When, as in the present case, we find a man whose only aim is the discernment and interpretation of the spiritual laws by which we live, and move, and have our being, all whose objects are permanent, and whose every word stands for a fact. If only as a representative of the claims of individual culture in a nation which is prone to lay such stress on artificial organization and external results, Mr. Emerson would be invaluable here."

"Who does not observe the immediate glow and security that is diffused over the life of woman, before restless or fretful, by engaging in gardening, building, or the lowest department of art? Here is something that is not routine--something that draws forth life towards the infinite."

"Who sees the meaning of the flower uprooted in the ploughed field? The ploughman who does not look beyond its boundaries and does not raise his eyes from the ground ? No ? but the poet who sees that field in its relations with the universe, and looks oftener to the sky than on the ground. Only the dreamer shall understand realities, though, in truth, his dreaming must not be out of proportion to his waking!"

"Without such ideas all attempts to construct a national literature must end in abortions like the monster of Frankenstein, things with forms, and the instincts of forms, but soulless, and therefore revolting. We cannot have expression till there is something to be expressed."

"Who can know these and, other myriad children of Chaos and old night, who can know the awe the horror and the majesty of earth, yet be content with the blue sky alone. Not I for one. I love the love lit dome above, I cannot live without mine own particular star; but my foot is on the earth and I wish to walk over it until my wings be grown. I will use my microscope as well as my telescope. And oh ye flowers, ye fruits, and, nearer kindred yet, stones with your veins so worn by fire and water, and here and there disclosing streaks of golden ore, let us know one another before we part. Tell me your secret, tell me mine. To be human is also something?"

"Woman is born for love, and it is impossible to turn her from seeking it."

"Wine is the most brilliant and intense expression of the powers of earth. It is her potable fire, her answer to the sun. It exhilarates, it inspires, but then it is liable to fever and intoxicate, too, the careless partaker. Mead was the chosen drink of the northern gods. And this essence of the honey of the mountain bee was not thought unworthy to revive the souls of the valiant who had left their bodies on the fields of strife below. Nectar should combine the virtues of the ruby wine, the golden mead, without their defects or dangers."

"Women could take part in the processions, the songs, the dances, of old religion; no one fancied their delicacy was impaired by appearing in public for such a cause."

"Woman, self-centered, would never be absorbed by any relation it would be only an experience to her as to man. It is a vulgar error that love, a love, to Woman is her whole existence; she also is born for Truth and Love in their universal energy."

"Wouldst have the princely spirit bowed? Whisper only, speak not loud, mark and leave him in the crowd. Thou need'st not spies nor jailers have; the free will serve thee like the slave, coward shrinking from the brave."

"Would that the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy, might be laid to heart; that a sense of the true aim of life might elevate the tone of politics and trade till public and private honor become identical."

"Writing her a message that her other friends can see conveys how meaningful her friendship was, so her memory is able to stay alive."

"Yet there is, often, between child and parent, a reaction from excessive influence having been exerted, and such an one we have experienced, in behalf of our country, against England. We use her language, and receive, in torrents, the influence of her thought, yet it is, in many respects, uncongenial and injurious to our constitution."

"You ask a faith, ? they are content with faith; You ask to have, ? but they reply "IT hath." There is no end, there need be no path."

"Yet man, if not yet fully installed in his powers, has given much earnest of his claims. Frail he is indeed,--how frail! how impure! Yet often has the vein of gold displayed itself amid the baser ores, and Man has appeared before us in princely promise worthy of his future."

"Your prudence, my wise friend, allows too little room for the mysterious whisperings of life."

"You are intellect, I am life!"