1850s

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

Song of Myself · 1855

★ 8.1

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

Song of Myself · 1855

★ 8.1

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.

Song of Myself · 1855

★ 8.0

Essay · Philosophical literature · Political literature

John Stuart Mill

On Liberty · 1859

★ 7.9

Scientific literature

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of the Species · 1859

★ 7.9

Our life is frittered away by detail…. Simplify, simplify.

Walden · 1854

★ 7.8

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Walden · 1854

★ 7.8

I celebrate myself and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Song of Myself · 1855

★ 7.4

Novel · Historical literature

Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities · 1859

★ 7.4

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

1857

★ 7.3

Essay · Historical literature · Political literature

Karl Marx

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte · 1852

★ 7.1

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Walden · 1854

★ 7.1

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Walden · 1854

★ 7.1

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.

Walden · 1854

★ 7.1

Novel

Herman Melville

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale · 1851

★ 7.1

It is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? · 1852

★ 7.0

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.

Abraham Lincoln

1858

★ 7.0

Justice is truth in action.

Benjamin Disraeli

1851

★ 7.0

If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

1857

★ 7.0

Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

Alfred Tennyson

1850

★ 7.0

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham.

1852

★ 7.0

Letter

See many skies and seas.

Gustave Flaubert

1857

★ 7.0

The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe. Though he does not represent the present state, he represents the future state. If he does not represent what we are, he represents what we ought to be.

Time is a great teacher but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

1852

★ 7.0

Letter

Hector Berlioz

1856

★ 6.9

Novel

By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike.

Herman Melville

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale · 1851

★ 6.3

Essay · Historical literature · Political literature

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

Karl Marx

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte · 1852

★ 6.3

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away."

Abraham Lincoln

1859

★ 6.2

The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.

Leaves of Grass · 1855

★ 5.7

In the long run men hit only what they aim at.

Walden · 1854

★ 5.6

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God.

Song of Myself · 1855

★ 5.6

Leaves of Grass · 1855

★ 5.5

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

Abraham Lincoln

1856

★ 5.5

Scientific literature

Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. The offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of surviving.

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species · 1859

★ 5.5

Essay · Philosophical literature · Political literature

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

John Stuart Mill

On Liberty · 1859

★ 5.5

Essay · Philosophical literature · Political literature

The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors.

John Stuart Mill

On Liberty · 1859

★ 5.5

Novel

All collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.

Herman Melville

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale · 1851

★ 5.5

Lecture

Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure.