How many persons must there be who cannot worship alone since they are content with so little.
Margaret FullerWhat concerns me now is that my life be a beautiful, powerful, in a word, a complete life of its kind.
Margaret FullerIt is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.
Margaret FullerIf 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 FullerUnion is only possible to those who are units. To be fit for relations in time, souls, whether of man or woman, must be able to do without them in the spirit.
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 FullerAll greatness affects different minds, each in its own particular kind, and the variations of testimony mark the truth of feeling.
Margaret FullerIt is so true that a woman may be in love with a woman, and a man with a man. It is pleasant to be sure of it, because it is undoubtedly the same love that we shall feel when we are angels.
Margaret FullerI 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 FullerLet no one dare to call another mad who is not himself willing to rank in the same class for every perversion and fault of judgment. Let no one dare aid in punishing another as criminal who is not willing to suffer the penalty due to his own offenses.
Margaret FullerSpirits that have once been sincerely united and tended together a sacred flame, never become entirely stranger to one another's life.
Margaret FullerThe persons whom you have idolized can never, in the end, be ungrateful, and, probably, at the time of retreat they still do justice to your heart. But, so long as you must draw persons too near you, a temporary recoil is sure to follow. It is the character striving to defend itself from a heating and suffocating action upon it.
Margaret FullerI now know all the people worth knowing in America, and I find no intellect comparable to my own.
Margaret FullerSome degree of expression is necessary for growth, but it should be little in proportion to the full life.
Margaret FullerPlants of great vigor will almost always struggle into blossom, despite impediments. But there should be encouragement, and a free genial atmosphere for those of more timid sort, fair play for each in its own kind.
Margaret FullerNot one man, in the million, shall I say? no, not in the hundred million, can rise above the belief that woman was made for man.
Margaret FullerTragedy is always a mistake; and the loneliness of the deepest thinker, the widest lover, ceases to be pathetic to us so soon as the sun is high enough above the mountains.
Margaret FullerHow 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 FullerWe would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to woman as freely as to man.
Margaret FullerMost 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 FullerThe mind is not, I know, a highway, but a temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left open.
Margaret FullerReverence 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 FullerEssays, entitled critical, are epistles addressed to the public, through which the mind of the recluse relieves itself of its impressions.
Margaret FullerEverywhere the fatal spirit of imitation, of reference to European standards, penetrates and threatens to blight whatever of original growth might adorn the soil.
Margaret FullerTruth 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 FullerThe 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 FullerAs to marriage, I think the intercourse of heart and mind may be fully enjoyed without entering into this partnership of daily life.
Margaret FullerThe critic ... should be not merely a poet, not merely a philosopher, not merely an observer, but tempered of all three.
Margaret FullerWhat 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 FullerIt 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 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 FullerAll 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 FullerWith the intellect I always have always shall overcome, but that is not the half of the work. The life, the life Oh my God! shall the life never be sweet!
Margaret FullerA 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 FullerIt was not meant that the soul should cultivate the earth, but that the earth should educate and maintain the soul.
Margaret Fuller