American Scholar Quotes

Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds.

I feel now, that Arabia could easily be evangelized within the next thirty years if it were not for the wicked selfishness of Christians.

The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not.

The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.

The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action passed, by, as a loss of power.

Books are the best type of the influence of the past.

Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions, has the richest return of wisdom.

The world is his who can see through its pretension.

Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind.

Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.

It is one soul which animates all men.

If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.

Meek young men grow up in libraries.

Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.

The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all.

And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.

The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances.

He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind, he has descended into the secrets of all minds.

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst...They are for nothing but to inspire.

It is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates all men.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings.

Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth.

Fear always springs from ignorance.

We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds... A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.

I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.

Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.

Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.

The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class - it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.

The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul

Of all the many memoirs by former Soviet officials, Palazchenko's is among the best written and also the most objective. Even his descriptions of U.S. policy are more accurate and judicious than those of some American scholars.