Truth is the nursing mother of genius. No man can be absolutely true to himself, eschewing cant, compromise, servile imitation, and complaisance without becoming original.
Margaret FullerBeware the mediocrity that threatens middle age, its limitation of thought and interest, its dullness of fancy, its too external life, and mental thinness.
Margaret FullerThe mind is not, I know, a highway, but a temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left open.
Margaret FullerIt 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 FullerCertainly I do not wish that instead of these masters I had read baby books, written down to children, and with such ignorant dullness that they blunt the sense and corrupt the tastes of the still plastic human being. But I do wish that I had read no books at all till later - that I had lived with toys, and played in the open air. Children should not cull the fruits of reflection and observation early, but expand in the sun, and let thoughts come to them. They should not through books antedate their actual experiences.
Margaret Fuller