Every rule is a sign of weakness. A man needs no rules to make him eat, when he is hungry: and a law is a badge of disgrace. Yet we are able to console ourselves, from points of view which terminate in duty, order, and the like advantages.

I went into the Church to look for a poor man.

For the Lord has said that the Poor are his children, and I thought His children would live in His house.

But in the pews sat only Kings and Lords: at least all that sat there were dressed like Kings and Lords; and I could not find the man I looked for, who was in rags;—presently I saw the sexton refuse admission to a man; lo, it was my poor man, he had on rags, and the sexton said, "No ragged allowed."

O World, I wish there was room for a poet. In the time of David and of Isaiah, in the time of John and of Homer, there was room for a poet. In the time of Hyvernion and of Herve and of Omar Khayyam: in the time of Shakspere, was room in the world for a poet.

In the lily, the sunset, the mountain, the rosy hues of all life, it is easy to trace God. But it is in the dust that goes up from the unending Battle of Things that we lose Him. Forever thro' the ferocities of storms, the malice of the never-glutted oceans, the savagery of human wars, the inexorable barbarities of accident, of earthquake and mysterious Disease, one hears the voice of man crying, where art thou, my dear Lord and Master?

But oh, how can ye trifle away your time at trades and waste yourself in men's commerce, when ye might be here in the woods at commerce with great angels, all heaven at purchase for a song.

The United States in two hundred years has made Emerson out of a witch-burner.