A Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
That which we call character is a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is conceived of as a certain undemonstrable force, a familiar or genius, by whose impulses the man is guided, but whose counsels he cannot impart.
Related Quotes
Character is an invincible force, which acts by presence and without means
Which was first, Matter or Force? If we think on this question, we shall find that we are unable to conceive of matter without force, or force without matter. When God created the elements of which the earth is composed, He created certain wondrous forces, which are set free and become evident when matter acts on matter.
My father, whose way was to force every event in nature into an hypothesis, by which means never man crucified TRUTH at the rate he did.
Thus far I have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our sea by the force of gravity, but I have not yet assigned a cause to gravity. Indeed, this force arises from some cause that penetrates as far as the centers of the sun and planets without any diminution of its power to act, and that acts not in proportion to the quantity of the surfaces of the particles on which it acts (as mechanical causes are wont to do) but in proportion to the quantity of solid matter, and whose action is extended everywhere to immense distances, always decreasing as the squares of the distances.
Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything - you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
I call worldly or earthly those whose minds and hearts are fixed on a tiny portion of this world they live in, which is our earth; who respect and love nothing beyond it: people as limited as what they call their property or their estate, which can be measured, whose acres can be counted, whose boundaries can be shown.
This new force, which was unknown until now, is common to organic and inorganic nature. I do not believe that this is a force entirely independent of the electrochemical affinities of matter; I believe, on the contrary, that it is only a new manifestation, but since we cannot see their connection and mutual dependence, it will be easier to designate it by a separate name. I will call this force catalytic force. Similarly, I will call the decomposition of bodies by this force catalysis, as one designates the decomposition of bodies by chemical affinity analysis.
Love is the weapon which Omnipotence reserved to conquer rebel man when all the rest had failed. Reason he parries; fear he answers blow for blow; future interest he meets with present pleasure; but love, that sun against whose melting beams the winter cannot stand--that soft subliming slumber which wrestles down the giant, there is not one human being in a million, nor a thousand men in all earth's huge quintillion, whose clay heart is hardened against love.
He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid.
A person whose desires and impulses are his own - are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture - is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has character.
Debt, grinding debt, whose iron face the widow, the orphan, and the sons of genius fear and hate; debt, which consumes so much time, which so cripples and disheartens a great spirit with cares that seem so base, is a preceptor whose lessons cannot be foregone, and is needed most by those who suffer from it most.
Force, force, everywhere force; we ourselves a mysterious force in the centre of that. "There is not a leaf rotting on the highway but has Force in it: how else could it rot?" [As used in his time, by the word force, Carlyle means energy.]
For, once man is declared 'the measure of all things,' there is no longer a true, or a good, or a just, but only opinions of equal validity whose clash can be settled only by political or military force; and each force in turn enthrones in its hour of triumph a true, a good, and a just which will endure just as long as itself.
We have to create a world in which there are no unknown, hostile aliens at the other end of any missiles, and that is going to take a tremendous amount of sheer hard work. The only force which can break down those barriers is the force of love, the force of truth, soul-force.
Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so; and which effects that for knowledge which the lens effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force.
A subtle-witted man is like an arrow, which, rending little surface, enters deeply, but they whose minds are dull resemble stones dashing with clumsy force, but never piercing.
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