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A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages.
to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
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.
Connect the dots
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, "What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within?" my friend suggested,—"But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil."
Their virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. 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.
do your work, and I shall know you.
For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.
The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency;
It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day.
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.
To be great is to be misunderstood.
Character teaches above our wills.
Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future.
essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct.
We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity.
If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault.
The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps.
Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say 'I think,' 'I am,' but quotes some saint or sage.
These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones;
But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.
Power is, in nature, the essential measure of right.
Let our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our native riches.
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.
your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation.
Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity.
I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify me and do the same thing.
Prayer that craves a particular commodity, any thing less than all good, is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action.
want
Pobreza
The secret of fortune is joy in our hands.
Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem the religious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property,
He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles;
some other favorable event raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
