#Authenticity Quotes

“Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter.”

“Then others for breath of words respect, Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.”

“Nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will.”

“Be not too tame neither, but let your own Discretion be your tutor; suit the action to the word, the word to the action.”

“Twas never merry world Since lowly feigning was called compliment.”

“Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”

“Seems," madam? Nay, it is; I know not "seems." 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe.”

“Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is?”

“What my tongue dares not that my heart shall say”

“Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel.”

“The thorny pointOf bare distress hath ta'en from me the showOf smooth civility; yet am I inland bredAnd know some nurture.”

“Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth But that our soft conditions and our hearts Should well agree with our external parts?”

“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

“How much more doth beauty beauteous seem by that sweet ornament which truth doth give!”

“To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes,Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown;But where there is true friendship, there needs none.”

“'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed”

“If we are true to ourselves, we can not be false to anyone.”

“And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.”

“My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear: That love is merchandised whose rich esteeming The owner's tongue doth publish every where.”

“Suit the action to the word : the word to the action : with this special observance that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature.”

“Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.”

“The true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to the people his life,--life passed through the fire of thought.”

“Say as you think and speak it from your souls.”

“There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved, by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, with the most disagreeable sensation.”

“But to most of us society shows not its face and eye, but its side and back. To stand in true relations with men in a false age isworth a fit of insanity, is it not?”

“Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions.”

“My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects.”

“Now stand you on the top of happy hours,And many maiden gardens yet unset,With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,Much liker than your painted counterfeit:So should the lines of life that life repairWhich this, Time's pencil, or my pupil penNeither in inward worth nor outward fairCan make you live your self in eyes of men.”

“If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage.”

“Every man should let out all the length of all the reigns; should find or make a frank and healthy expression of what force and meaning is in him.”

“Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.”

“I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.”

“In good writing, words become one with things.”

“What is originality? It is being one's self, and reporting accurately what we see and are.”

“The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, that it scatters your force.”

“Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore it if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.”

“Men are like Geneva watches with crystal faces, which expose the whole movement.”

“Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.”

“It is one of the biggest blessing that you can be stupid with your true friends and behave like you shame to do elsewhere”

“I think that the heroism which at this day would make on us the impression of Epaminondas and Phocion must be that of a domestic conqueror. He who shall bravely and gracefully subdue this Gorgon of Convention and Fashion, and show men how to lead a clean, handsome and heroic life amid the beggarly elements of our cities and villages; whoso shall teach me how to eat my meat and take my repose and deal with men, without any shame following, will restore the life of man to splendor, and make his own name dear to all history.”

“Fear, when your friends say to you what you have done well, and say it through; but when they stand with uncertain timid looks of respect and half-dislike, and must suspend their judgement for years to come, you may begin to hope.”

“You will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday though it may be, I have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys.”

“The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear, alike in the poverty of the obscurest farm, and in the miscellany of metropolitan life, and that these few are alone to be regarded,--the escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are; and love what is simple and beautiful; independence and cheerful relation, these are the essentials,--these, and the wish to serve,--to add somewhat to the well-being of men.”

“Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.”

“A dilettantism in nature is barren and unworthy. A fop of fields is no better than his brother on Broadway.”

“It is not what talents or genius a man has, but how he is to his talents, that constitutes friendship and character. The man thatstands by himself, the universe stands by him also.”

“Every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical and literature a quotation.”

“A human being should beware how he laughs, for then he shows all his faults.”

“The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.”

“The secret of genius is to suffer no fiction to exist for us; to realize all that we know; in the high refinement of modern life,in arts, in sciences, in books, in men, to exact good faith, reality, and a purpose; and first, last, midst, and without end, to honor every truth by use.”