The American Scholar

he deeper he dives into his privatest, secretest presentiment, to his wonder he finds this is the most acceptable, most public and universally true.

great man makes the great thing

Free should the scholar be,—free and brave.

Man is surprised to find that things near are not less beautiful and wondrous than things remote. The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocea

Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political movement, is the new importance given to the single person

actions and events of our childhood and youth are now matters of calmest observation. They lie like fair pictures in the air.

There goes in the world a notion that the scholar should be a recluse

But genius always looks forward. The eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead. Man hopes. Genius creates. To create,—to create,—is the proof of a divine presence.

Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the fear of boys, and dogs, and ferules,49 the love of little maids and berries, and many another fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already; friend and relative, profession and party, town and country, nation and world, must also soar and sing.

I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech