Quotes from 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.

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.

Preparations are good in life, prologues ruinous.

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.

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

Essays, entitled critical, are epistles addressed to the public, through which the mind of the recluse relieves itself of its impressions.

Union 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.

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.

It 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.

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

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

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.

Would that the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy, might be laid to heart; that a sense of the true aim of life might elevate the tone of politics and trade till public and private honor become identical.

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

Truth is the first of jewels.

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.

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

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

Truth is the nursing mother of genius.

Give me truth; cheat me by no illusion.

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

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

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

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