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John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

Page 621

 
 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. (1803–1882) (continued)
 
6318
      In skating over thin ice our safety is our speed.
          Prudence.
6319
      Shallow men believe in luck.
          Worship.
6320
      Heroism feels and never reasons and therefore is always right.
          Heroism.
6321
      The faith that stands on authority is not faith.
          The Over-soul.
6322
      God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.
          Intellect.
6323
      His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.
          Greatness.
6324
      We boil at different degrees.
          Eloquence.
6325
      Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?
          Works and Days.
6326
      Self-trust is the first secret of success.
          Success.
6327
      Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. 1 
          Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
6328
      When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies, “Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life.”
          Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
6329
      In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
          Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
 
Note 1.
There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.—Bayle: vol. ii. p. 779.
  Though old the thought and oft exprest,
  ’T is his at last who says it best.
    Lowell: For an Autograph. [back]