About
"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
"The frontiers are not east or west, north or south,
but wherever a man "fronts" a fact."
"In any weather, at any hour of the day or night,
I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too;
to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future,
which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line."
"As surely as the sunset in my latest November
shall translate me to the ethereal world,
and remind me of the ruddy morning of youth;
as surely as the last strain of music which falls on my decaying ear
shall make age to be forgotten,
or, in short, the manifold influences of nature
survive during the term of our natural life,
so surely my Friend shall forever be my Friend,
and reflect a ray of God to me,
and time shall foster and adorn and consecrate our Friendship,
no less than the ruins of temples."
"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself,
than be crowded on a velvet cushion."
"In the streets and in society I am almost invariably
cheap and dissipated, my life is unspeakably mean.
No amount of gold or respectability would in the least
redeem it,-- dining with the Governor or a member of Congress!!
But alone in the distant woods or fields,
in unpretending sprout-lands or pastures tracked by rabbits,
even in a bleak and, to most, cheerless day, like this,
when a villager would be thinking of his inn,
I come to myself, I once more feel myself grandly related,
and that cold and solitude are friends of mine.
I suppose that this value, in my case, is equivalent
to what others get by churchgoing and prayer.
I come home to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home.
I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are,
grand and beautiful. I have told many that I walk every day
about half the daylight, but I think they do not believe it.
I wish to get the Concord, the Massachusetts, the America,
out of my head and be sane a part of every day."
"However mean your life is, meet it and live it;
do not shun it and call it hard names."
"An efficient and valuable man does what he can,
whether the community pay him for it or not.
The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder,
and are forever expecting to be put in office."
"To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts,
nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live
according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence,
magnanimity, and trust."
"Perfect sincerity and transparency make a great part of beauty,
as in dewdrops, lakes, and diamonds."
And my personal favorite:
"The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad,
and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.
What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?"
From .+.Rath.+.Roiben.+.Rye.+.
Don't you love it? I do. ^_^
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