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There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.
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Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
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I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
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There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.
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It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.
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There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.
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Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?
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To be admitted to Nature’s hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.
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What is human warfare but just this an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.
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The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.
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Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.
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There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.
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Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.
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If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
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The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
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Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.
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When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.
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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
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What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.
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What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.