583 quotes
I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom.
Journals (1822)
The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.
The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.
Divinity College Address (1838)
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
Poems (1847)
He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.
The Method of Nature (1841)
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!
Nature (1836)
The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself. He is not to live the future as described to him but to live the real future to the real present. The highest revelation is that God is in every man.
Journals (1822)
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance.
Nature (1836)
When life is true to the poles of nature, the streams of truth will roll through us in song.
Letters and Social Aims (1876)
Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the total worth of man.
There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.
Nature (1836)
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.
No man acquires property without acquiring with it a little arithmetic, also.
Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.
Letters and Social Aims (1876)
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Society and Solitude (1870)
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world. No hope so bright but is the beginning of its own fulfillment.
Letters and Social Aims (1876)
Only the great generalizations survive. The sharp words of the Declaration of Independence, lampooned then and since as 'glittering generalities,' have turned out blazing ubiquities that will burn forever and ever.
Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.
Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.