Was Never Secret History But Birds Tell

Wisdom Is Like Electricity. There Is No Permanently Wise Man, But Men Capable Of Wisdom, Who, Being Put Into Certain Company, Or Other Favorable Conditions, Become Wise For A Short Time, As Glasses Rubbed Acquire Electric Power For A While.

Our Country, Customs, Laws, Our Ambitions, And Our Notions Of Fit And Fair-all These We Never Made; We Found Them Ready-made; We But Quote From Them. What Would Remain To Me If This Art Of Appropriation Were Derogatory To Genius? Every One Of My Writings Has Been Furnished To Me By A Thousand Different Persons, A Thousand Things; Wise And Foolish Have Brought Me, Without Suspecting It, The Offering Of Their Thoughts, Faculties, And Experience. My Work Is An Aggregation Of Beings Taken From The Whole Of Nature. It Bears The Name Of Goethe.

[on Thoreau:] For Not A Particle Of Respect Had He To The Opinions Of Any Man Or Body Of Men, But Homage Solely To Truth Itself.

What I Must Do Is All That Concerns Me, Not What The People Think. This Rule, Equally Arduous In Actual And In Intellectual Life, May Serve For The Whole Distinction Between Greatness And Meanness.

Every Man In His Lifetime Needs To Thank His Faults.