Margaret Fuller Quotes

The especial genius of women I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency. ~ Margaret Fuller

Preparations are good in life, prologues ruinous. ~ Margaret Fuller

This is the method of genius, to ripen fruit for the crowd by those rays of whose heat they complain. ~ Margaret Fuller

As Margaret would later write, Europe had come to seem "my America," an unsettled territory where liberty was at hand, while the New World she had left behind had grown "stupid with the lust of gain, soiled by crime in its willing perpetuation of slavery, shamed by an unjust war," the imperialist conflict with Mexico over the annexation of Texas. ~ Megan Marshall

Genius will live and thrive without training, but it does not the less reward the watering pot and the pruning knife. ~ Margaret Fuller

Margaret Fuller was already a celebrity, travelling around the world. Emerson, who was the axis around which that whole community turned, just didn't like Fourier's ideas very much. He thought it was all too rigid and programmatic. He said, "Fourier had skipped no fact but one, namely life." He thought it was an inhumane system - the day is scheduled too precisely. He didn't think it would work, and he was right. ~ Christine Jennings

But the golden-rod is one of the fairy, magical flowers; it grows not up to seek human love amid the light of day, but to mark to the discerning what wealth lies hid in the secret caves of earth. ~ Margaret Fuller

The only woman to whom it has been given to touch what is decisive in the present world and to have a presentiment of the world of the future. ~ Margaret Fuller

When the intellect and affections are in harmony; when intellectual consciousness is calm and deep; inspiration will not be confounded with fancy. ~ Margaret Fuller

I now know all the people worth knowing in America and I find no intellect comparable to my own. ~ Margaret Fuller

But the intellect, cold, is ever more masculine than feminine; warmed by emotion, it rushes towards mother earth, and puts on the forms of beauty. ~ Margaret Fuller

To one who has enjoyed the full life of any scene, of any hour, what thoughts can be recorded about it seem like the commas and semicolons in the paragraph-mere stops. ~ Margaret Fuller

Amid all your duties, keep some hours to yourself. ~ Margaret Fuller

It is not because the touch of genius has roused genius to production, but because the admiration of genius has made talent ambitious, that the harvest is still so abundant. ~ Margaret Fuller

Man is not made for society, but society is made for man. No institution can be good which does not tend to improve the individual. ~ Margaret Fuller

Pain has no effect but to steal some of my time. ~ Margaret Fuller

Nature provides exceptions to every rule. ~ Margaret Fuller

The mind is not, I know, a highway, but a temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left open. ~ Margaret Fuller

If anything can be invented more excruciating than an English Opera, such as was the fashion at the time I was in London, I am sure no sin of mine deserves the punishment of bearing it. ~ Margaret Fuller

For precocity some great price is always demanded sooner or later in life. ~ Margaret Fuller

Most marvelous and enviable is that fecundity of fancy which can adorn whatever it touches, which can invest naked fact and dry reasoning with unlooked-for beauty, make flowers bloom even on the brow of the precipice, and, when nothing better can be had, can turn the very substance of rock itself into moss and lichens. This faculty is uncomparingly the most important for the vivid and attractive exhibition of truth to the minds of men. ~ Margaret Fuller

Who does not observe the immediate glow and security that is diffused over the life of woman, before restless or fretful, by engaging in gardening, building, or the lowest department of art? Here is something that is not routine
something that draws forth life towards the infinite. ~ Margaret Fuller

I am 'too fiery' ... yet I wish to be seen as I am and I would lose all rather than soften away anything. ~ Margaret Fuller

It seems that it is madder never to abandon one's self than often to be infatuated; better to be wounded, a captive and a slave, than always to walk in armor. ~ Margaret Fuller

The critic is beneath the maker, but is his needed friend. The critic is not a base caviler, but the younger brother of genius. Next to invention is the power of interpreting invention; next to beauty the power of appreciating beauty. And of making others appreciate it ... ~ Margaret Fuller

Tremble not before the free man, but before the slave who has chains to break. ~ Margaret Fuller

It should be remarked that, as the principle of liberty is better understood, and more nobly interpreted, a broader protest is made in behalf of women. As men become aware that few have had a fair chance, they are inclined to say that no women have had a fair chance. ~ Margaret Fuller

We need to hear the excuses men make to themselves for their worthlessness. ~ Margaret Fuller

Beware the mediocrity that threatens middle age, its limitation of thought and interest, its dullness of fancy, its too external life, and mental thinness. ~ Margaret Fuller

It was not meant that the soul should cultivate the earth, but that the earth should educate and maintain the soul. ~ Margaret Fuller

Whatever the soul knows how to seek, it cannot fail to obtain. ~ Margaret Fuller

Two persons love in one another the future good which they aid one another to unfold. ~ Margaret Fuller

In order that she may be able to give her hand with dignity, she must be able to stand alone. ~ Margaret Fuller

Margaret Fuller Slack I WOULD have been as great as George Eliot But for an untoward fate. For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit, Chin resting on hand, and deep - set eyes - Gray, too, and far-searching. But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity? Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me, Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel, And I married him, giving birth to eight children, And had no time to write. It was all over with me, anyway, When I ran the needle in my hand While washing the baby's things, And died from lock - jaw, an ironical death. Hear me, ambitious souls, Sex is the curse of life. ~ Edgar Lee Masters

All greatness affects different minds, each in its own particular kind, and the variations of testimony mark the truth of feeling. ~ Margaret Fuller

Drudgery is as necessary to call out the treasures of the mind, as harrowing and planting those of the earth. ~ Margaret Fuller

Beware of over-great pleasure in being popular or even beloved. As far as an amiable disposition and powers of entertainment make you so, it is a happiness; but if there is one grain of plausibility, it is poison. ~ Margaret Fuller

Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live. ~ Margaret Fuller

Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow. ~ Margaret Fuller

The Greeks saw everything in forms which we are trying to ascertain as law, and classify as cause. ~ Margaret Fuller

We have waited here long in the dust; we are tired and hungry; but the triumphal procession must appear at last. ~ Margaret Fuller

How many persons must there be who cannot worship alone since they are content with so little. ~ Margaret Fuller

I fear I have not one good word to say this fair morning, though the sun shines so encouragingly on the distant hills and gentle river and the trees are in their festive hues. I am not festive, though contented. When obliged to give myself to the prose of life, as I am on this occasion of being established in a new home I like to do the thing, wholly and quite, - to weave my web for the day solely from the grey yarn. ~ Margaret Fuller

The highest ideal man can form of his own powers, is that which he is destined to attain. Whatever the soul knows how to seek, it cannot fail to obtain. This is the law and the prophets. Knock and it shall be opened, seek and ye shall find. It is demonstrated; it is a maxim. ~ Margaret Fuller

At Chicago I read again 'Philip Van Artevelde,' and certain passages in it will always be in my mind associated with the deep sound of the lake, as heard in the night. I used to read a short time at night, and then open the blind to look out. The moon would be full upon the lake, and the calm breath, pure light, and the deep voice, harmonized well with the thought of the Flemish hero. When will this country have such a man ? It is what she needs - no thin Idealist, no coarse Realist, but a man whose eye reads the heavens while his feet step firmly on the ground and his hands are strong and dextrous in the use of human instruments. A man, religious, virtuous and - sagacious; a man of universal sympathies, but self-possessed; a man who knows the region of emotion, though he is not its slave; a man to whom this world is no mere spectacle or fleeting shadow, but a great, solemn game, to be played with good heed, for its stakes are of eternal value, yet who, if his own play be true, heeds not what he loses by the falsehood of others. A man who lives from the past, yet knows that its honey can but moderately avail him; whose comprehensive eye scans the present, neither infatuated by its golden lures nor chilled by its many ventures; who possesses prescience, as the wise man must, but not so far as to be driven mad to-day by the gift which discerns to-morrow. When there is such a man for America, the thought which urges her on will be expressed. ~ Margaret Fuller

The soul of the great musician can only be expressed in music. ~ Margaret Fuller

There are noble books but one wants the breath of life sometimes. ~ Margaret Fuller

Let every woman, who has once begun to think, examine herself ~ Margaret Fuller

There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman. ~ Margaret Fuller

We cannot have expression till there is something to be expressed. ~ Margaret Fuller

The Arabian horse will not plough well, nor can the plough-horse be rode to play the jereed. ~ Margaret Fuller

Art can only be truly art by presenting an adequate outward symbol of some fact in the interior life. ~ Margaret Fuller

What I mean by the Muse is that unimpeded clearness of the intuitive powers, which a perfectly truthful adherence to every admonition of the higher instincts would bring to a finely organized human being. It may appear as prophesy or as poesy ... should these faculties have free play, I believe they will open up new, deeper and purer sources of joyous inspiration than have as yet refreshed the earth. ~ Margaret Fuller

Today is a reader; Tomorrow is a leader ~ Margaret Fuller

Who can ever be alone for a moment in Italy? Every stone has a voice, every grain of dust seems instinct with spirit from the Past, every step recalls some line, some legend of long-neglected lore. ~ Margaret Fuller

Beings, likely to be left alone, need to be fortified and furnished within themselves, and educationand thought have tended more and more to regard these beings as related to absolute being ... ~ Margaret Fuller

How anyone can remain a Catholic - I mean who has ever been aroused to think, and is not biased by the partialities of childish years - after seeing Catholicism here in Italy I cannot conceive. ~ Margaret Fuller

...above all things; to remember that hypocrisy is the most hopeless as well as the meanest of crimes... ~ Margaret Fuller

Woman is born for love, and it is impossible to turn her from seeking it. ~ Margaret Fuller

But her eye, that torch or the soul, is untamed, and in the intensity of her reading, we see a soul invincibly young in faith and hope. ~ Margaret Fuller

Accursed be he who willingly saddens an immortal spirit---doomed to infamy in later, wiser ages, doomed in future stages of his own being to deadly penance, only short of death. ~ Margaret Fuller

Truth is the first of jewels. ~ Margaret Fuller

No temple can still the personal griefs and strifes in the breasts of its visitors. ~ Margaret Fuller

Artists are always young. ~ Margaret Fuller

Every fact is impure, but every fact contains in it the juices of life. Every fact is a clod, from which may grow an amaranth or a palm. ~ Margaret Fuller

Some degree of expression is necessary for growth, but it should be little in proportion to the full life. ~ Margaret Fuller

The character and history of each child may be a new and poetic experience to the parent, if he will let it. ~ Margaret Fuller

I should never stand alone in this desert world, but that manna would drop from heaven, if I would but rise with every rising sun to gather it. ~ Margaret Fuller

Be what you would seem to be. ~ Margaret Fuller

I stand in the sunny noon of life. Objects no longer glitter in the dews of morning, neither are yet softened by the shadows of evening. ~ Margaret Fuller

Reverence the highest, have patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all. ~ Margaret Fuller

All great expression, which on a superficial survey seems so easy as well as so simple, furnishes after a while, to the faithful observer, its own standard by which to appreciate it. ~ Margaret Fuller

The use of criticism, in periodical writing, is to sift, not to stamp a work. ~ Margaret Fuller

Man can never come up to his ideal standard. It is the nature of the immortal spirit to raise that standard higher and higher as it goes from strength to strength, still upward and onward. The wisest and greatest men are ever the most modest. ~ Margaret Fuller

Spirits that have once been sincerely united and tended together a sacred flame, never become entirely stranger to one another's life. ~ Margaret Fuller

Marriage is the natural means of forming a sphere, of taking root on the earth: it requires strength to do this without such an opening, very many have failed to this, and their imperfections have been in every one's way. ~ Margaret Fuller

With the intellect, I always have-always shall overcome, but that is not half of the work of life. The life-oh my God-shall the life never be sweet? ~ Margaret Fuller

Put up at the moment of greatest suffering a prayer, not for thy own escape, but for the enfranchisement of some being dear to thee, and the sovereign spirit will accept thy ransom. ~ Margaret Fuller

Yet, by men in this country, as by the Jews, when Moses was leading them to the promised land, everything has been done that inherited depravity could do, to hinder the promise of Heaven from its fulfilment. The cross, here as elsewhere, has been planted only to be blasphemed by cruelty and fraud. ~ Margaret Fuller

Only the dreamer shall understand realities, though in truth his dreaming must be not out of proportion to his waking. ~ Margaret Fuller

It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods. ~ Margaret Fuller

A great work of Art demands a great thought or a thought of beauty adequately expressed. - Neither in Art nor Literature more than in Life can an ordinary thought be made interesting because well-dressed. ~ Margaret Fuller

The civilized man is a larger mind but a more imperfect nature than the savage. ~ Margaret Fuller

A house is no home unless it contain food and fire for the mind as well as for the body. ~ Margaret Fuller

Nature seems to have poured forth her riches so without calculation, merely to mark the fullness of her joy. ~ Margaret Fuller

Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger or higher or wider, nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in heaven or on earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is created above all things. ~ Thomas A Kempis

You could tell 'The Handmaid's Tale' from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting. ~ Margaret Atwood

She's wearing her hair in a bun, like a ballerina's. Buns are so sexy. They used to be a treat to take apart: it was like opening a gift. Heads with the hair pulled back into buns are so elegant and confined, so maidenish; then the undoing, the dishevelment, the wildness of the freed hair, spilling down the shoulders, over the breasts, over the pillow. He enumerates in his head: Buns I have known. ~ Margaret Atwood

It is probably a pity that every citizen of each state cannot visit all the others, to see the differences, to learn what we have in common, and come back with a richer, fuller understanding of America - in all its beauty, in all its dignity, in all its strength, in support of moral principles. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

It's always encouraging to be told that it is intellectually acceptable to read the sorts of things that you like to read anyway. ~ Margaret Atwood

A lot of help she was. Weren't witches supposed to have power? If you asked me Noel seemed more like a glorified gothic librarian. ~ Tara A. Fuller

Personal virtue is no substitute for political hard-headedness. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Sharing oft leaves less.
But with love the more we share,
the fuller our hearts. ~ J. Benson

It is one of the great weaknesses of reasonable men and women that they imagine that projects which fly in the face of commonsense are not serious or being seriously undertaken. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Some persons talk simply because they think sound is more manageable than silence. ~ Margaret Halsey

You have to adhere to a certain morality, a certain level of decorum, or else you'll be punished and labeled. ~ Margaret Cho

Will you still love me when I'm a monster? ~ Margaret Mahy

Socialism and communism fall of their own weight because, as Margaret Thatcher said, you run out of other people's money. Because socialized medicine never falls of its own weight because you put people on lists, and they die waiting to get the treatment and care. So you don't go broke. ~ Louie Gohmert

This afternoon held that special quality of mournful emptiness I've connected with late Sunday afternoons ever since childhood: the feeling of having nothing to do. ~ Margaret Atwood

I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near. ~ Margaret Thatcher