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The philanthropists inquire whether Transcendentalism does not mean sloth: they had as lief hear that their friend is dead, as that he is a Transcendentalist; for then is he paralyzed, and can never do anything for humanity.
Sep 19, 2025
Things are in the saddle. And ride mankind.
Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning.
Two attempts have been made in the world to found social life: the one was upon religion, and the other was upon social necessity. The one was founded upon spirituality, the other upon materialism; the one upon transcendentalism, the other upon realism.
Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
Man seeks to change the foods available in nature to suit his tastes, thereby putting an end to the very essence of life contained in them.
The essence of all religions is One. Surrender is the main duty of everyone. Surrender means the feeling of oneness, I and God are One. Why? The reason is that the One who is present in you is present in me.
For life is tendency, and the essence of a tendency is to develop in the form of a sheaf, creating, by its very growth, divergent directions among which its impetus is divided.
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.
As the moral gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gaiety, even so was their home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest.
As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full.
Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy - your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself.
Originality is the essence of true scholarship. Creativity is the soul of the true scholar.
The real essence of work is concentrated energy.
Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.
Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing.
Now, the essence, the very spirit of Christmas is that we first make believe a thing is so, and lo, it presently turns out to be so.
It is characteristic of science that the full explanations are often seized in their essence by the percipient scientist long in advance of any possible proof.
Every man is entitled to come to Cattle-Show, even a transcendentalist; and for my part I am more interested in the men than in the cattle.
All this cut-price transcendentalism does not prevent California from being a startlingly physical state. This becomes most obvious where Los Angeles saunters down to the sea. The region is called Venice.
The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.
Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.
The essence of football was blocking, tackling, and execution based on timing, rhythm and deception.
The Buddhist, who thanks no man, who says "Do not flatter your benefactors," but who, in his conviction that every good deed can by no possibility escape its reward, will not deceive the benefactor by pretending that he has done more than he should, is a Transcendentalist.
Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.
The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracle, in the perpetual openness of thehuman mind to new influx of light and power; he believes in inspiration, and in ecstacy.
. . . the wellspring for the passion that drove public speech and action in behalf of the environment was in large part religious and ethical. Environmentalism, in short, had become one version of nature religion in the lingering shadow of American transcendentalism.
When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis.
Praying without ceasing is not ritualized, nor are there even words. It is a constant state of awareness of oneness with God.
Surely, we are provided with senses as well fitted to penetrate the spaces of the real, the substantial, the eternal, as these outward are to penetrate the material universe. Veias, Menu, Zoroaster, Socrates, Christ, Shakespeare, Swedenborg,--these are some of our astronomers.
Art is a jealous mistress.
But what I attach great importance to is observation of the movement of colors. It is only in this way that I have found the laws of complementary contrast and the simultaneity of those colors that nourish the rhythm of my vision. There I find the representative essence — which does not arise from a system or an a priori theory.
If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.
I recognize the delivery of grace to my day, even if I cannot identify a specific return address.
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.
Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
The essence of man is, discontent, divine discontent; a sort of love without a beloved, the ache we feel in a member we no longer have.
In actual life it requires the greatest discipline to be simple, and the acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook upon life.
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
The only way to have a friend is to be one.