Though the uninspired man certainly finds persons a conveniency in household matters, the divine man does not respect them: he sees them as a rack of clouds, or a fleet of ripples which the wind drives over the surface of the water. NOMINALIST AND REALIST AUGUST TWENTIETH You cannot hide any secret. If the artist succor his flagging spirits by opium or wine, his work will characterize itself as the effect of opium or wine. If you make a picture or a statue, it sets the beholder in that state of mind you had, when you made it. If you spend for show, on building, or gardening, or on pictures, or on equipages, it will so appear. We are all physiognomists and penetrators of character, and things themselves are detective. WORSHIP AUGUST TWENTY-FIRST The aspect of Nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head and hands folded upon the breast. The happiest man is he who learns from Nature the lesson of worship. SPIRIT AUGUST TWENTY-SECOND Every man who would do anything well must come to it from a higher ground. A philosopher must be more than a philosopher. PLATO; OR, THE PHILOSOPHER AUGUST TWENTY-THIRD You are preparing with eagerness to go and render a service to which your talent and your taste invite you, the love of men and the hope of fame. Has it not occurred to you that you have no right to go, unless you are equally willing to be prevented from going? THE OVER-SOUL AUGUST TWENTY-FOURTH First one, then another, we drain all cisterns, and, waxing greater by all these supplies, we crave a better and more abundant food. The man has never lived that can feed us ever. THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR AUGUST TWENTY-FIFTH There is a principle which is the basis of things, which all speech aims to say, and all action to evolve, a simple, quiet, undescribed, undescribable presence, dwelling very peacefully in us, our rightful lord: 1: we are not to do, but to let do; not to work, but to be worked upon; and to this homage there is a consent of all thoughtful and just men in all ages and conditions. AUGUST TWENTY-SIXTH That you are fair or wise is vain, You must have also the untaught strain WORSHIP FATE As the granite comes to the surface, and towers into the highest mountains, and, if we dig down, we find it below the superficial strata, so in all the details of our domestic or civil life is hidden the elemental reality which ever and anon comes to the surface and forms the grand men who are the leaders and examples, rather than the companions, of the race. LECTURE ON THE TIMES AUGUST TWENTY-EIGHTH If a man dissemble, deceive, he deceives himself, and goes out of acquaintance with his own being. A man in the view of absolute goodness adores with total humility. Every step so downward is a step upward. The man who renounces himself comes to himself. AN ADDRESS AUGUST TWENTY-NINTH The beautiful laws of time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude, are holes and dens. If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, instead of honey it will yield us bees. Our words and actions to be fair must be timely. PRUDENCE AUGUST THIRTIETH Nothing is beneath you, if it is in the direction of your life: nothing is great or desirable, if it is off from that. I think we are entitled to draw here a straight line, and say, that society can never pros per, but must always be bankrupt, until every man does that which he was created to do. WEALTH AUGUST THIRTY-FIRST For nature beats in perfect tune, And rounds with rhyme her every rune, But it carves the bow of beauty there, WOOD NOTES |