100+ Margaret Fuller Quotes | InspiringQuotes.us

source: - "The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus Women". Essay by Margaret Fuller, first published in The Dial Magazine, Volume IV, archive.vcu.edu. July 1843.

Topics: Men, Sea, Justice

There exists in the minds of men a tone of feeling toward women as toward slaves.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Margaret F. Ossoli (2008). “Woman in the Ninteenth Century (EasyRead Large Edition)”, p.25, ReadHowYouWant.com

Topics: Men, Feelings, Mind

Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But in fact they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.

source: - Margaret Fuller (2012). “Woman in the Nineteenth Century”, p.78, Courier Corporation

Topics: Women, Masculine And Feminine, Two Sides, Nineteenth Century, Dualism

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller (1852). “Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli”, p.28

Topics: Men, Society, Doe

Give me truth; cheat me by no illusion.

source: - Margaret Fuller, James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Channing (1852). “Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli”, p.99

Topics: Truth, Giving, Illusion

Be what you would seem to be.

Topics: Seems

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Channing (1852). “Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli”, p.151

Topics: Pain, Stealing, My Time

The life of the soul is incalculable.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Robert N. Hudspeth (1988). “The Letters of Margaret Fuller: 1848-49”, Cornell Univ Pr

Topics: Soul

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Woman in the 19th century, and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition, and duties of woman”, p.71

Topics: Doors, Mind, Temples

Truth is the first of jewels.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Robert N. Hudspeth (2001). “My Heart is a Large Kingdom: Selected Letters of Margaret Fuller”, p.219, Cornell University Press

Topics: Truth, Jewels, Firsts

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

source: - Margaret Fuller (1860). “Woman in the nineteenth century: and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition and duties of woman”, p.369

Topics: Nature, Joy, Riches

Truth is the nursing mother of genius.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke”, p.301

Topics: Mother, Nursing, Genius

Our desires, once realized, haunt us again less readily.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Woman in the 19th century, and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition, and duties of woman”, p.3

Topics: Desire

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

Topics: Age, Mediocrity, Fancy, Middle Ages, Thinness

Preparations are good in life, prologues ruinous.

source: - Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852). “Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli: In Three Volumes”, p.84

Topics: Preparation, Prologue

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

source: - Margaret Fuller (2012). “Woman in the Nineteenth Century”, p.44, Courier Corporation

Topics: Men, Slave, Break

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller (2012). “Woman in the Nineteenth Century”, p.80, Courier Corporation

Topics: Men, Soul, Independence

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke”, p.65

Topics: Men, Spirit, Standards, Greatest Man

Life is richly worth living, with its continual revelations of mighty woe, yet infinite hope; and I take it to my breast.

source: - Margaret Fuller, James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Channing (1852). “Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli”, p.306

Topics: Woe, Infinite Hope, Life Is

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke”, p.300

Topics: Expression

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

source: - Margaret Fuller (1855). “Woman in the Nineteenth Century: And Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition and Duties, of Woman”, p.336

Topics: Destiny, Impossible, Born

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

source: - Margaret Fuller (1856). “At home and abroad: or, Things and thoughts in America and Europe”, p.198

Topics: Art, Adequate, Facts

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke”, p.149

Topics: Men, Needs, Excuse, Worthlessness

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, Robert N. Hudspeth (2001). “My Heart is a Large Kingdom: Selected Letters of Margaret Fuller”, p.79, Cornell University Press

Topics: Book, Noble, Want

All around us lies what we neither understand nor use. Our capacities, our instincts for this our present sphere are but half developed. Let us confine ourselves to that till the lesson be learned; let us be completely natural; before we trouble ourselves with the supernatural. I never see any of these things but I long to get away and lie under a green tree and let the wind blow on me. There is marvel and charm enough in that for me.

source: - Margaret Fuller (1992). “The Essential Margaret Fuller”, p.146, Rutgers University Press

Topics: Lying, Blow, Wind, Green Trees

A house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as for the body. For human beings are not so constituted that they can live without expansion. If they do not get it in one way, they must in another, or perish.

source: - Margaret Fuller (1860). “Woman in the nineteenth century: and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition and duties of woman”, p.36

Topics: Home, Fire, House

As to marriage, I think the intercourse of heart and mind may be fully enjoyed without entering into this partnership of daily life.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Bell Gale Chevigny (1976). “The Woman and the Myth: Margaret Fuller's Life and Writings”, p.488, UPNE

Topics: Heart, Thinking, Mind

Plants 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.

source: - Margaret Fuller (2012). “Woman in the Nineteenth Century”, p.33, Courier Corporation

Topics: Encouragement, Struggle, Play

It is a vulgar error that love, a love, to woman is her whole existence; she is born for Truth and Love in their universal energy

source: - Margaret Fuller, Margaret F. Ossoli (2008). “Woman in the Ninteenth Century (EasyRead Large Edition)”, p.195, ReadHowYouWant.com

Topics: Independent, Errors, And Love, Universal Energy

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

Topics: Hands, Order, Giving

I find no intellect comparable to my own

source: - Quoted in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, ed. Ralph Waldo Emerson,William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke (1852)

Topics: Intellect, My Own

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

Topics: Heartless, Wish, Fiery

Beware of over-great pleasure in being popular or even beloved.

source: - Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1869). “Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and Kindred Papers relating to the Sphere, Condition, and Duties of Woman”, p.349

Topics: Vanity, Beloved, Recognition, Being Popular

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke”, p.222

Topics: Soul, Musician, Great Music, Great Musician

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

source: - Margaret Fuller (1994). “The Letters of Margaret Fuller: 1850 and undated”

Topics: Flames, Together, Sacred

Not 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.

source: - Margaret Fuller (2012). “Woman in the Nineteenth Century”, p.26, Courier Corporation

Topics: Men, Belief, Rise Above

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

source: - Margaret Fuller (1992). “The Essential Margaret Fuller”, p.204, Rutgers University Press

Topics: Men, Civilization, Mind

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Bell Gale Chevigny (1976). “The Woman and the Myth: Margaret Fuller's Life and Writings”, p.243, UPNE

Topics: Men, Liberty, Principles

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke”, p.55

Topics: Later In Life, Sooner Or Later

The man of science dissects the statement, verifies the facts, and demonstrates connection even where he cannot its purpose.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Ripley (1961). “The Dial: A Magazine for Literature, Philosophy, and Religion”

Topics: Science, Men, Connections

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

source: - Quoted in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, ed. Ralph Waldo Emerson,William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke (1852)

Topics: Knowing, America, People, Nineteenth Century

Man tells his aspiration in his God; but in his demon he shows his depth of experience.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Ripley (1961). “The Dial: A Magazine for Literature, Philosophy, and Religion”

Topics: Men, Depth, Demon

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.

Topics: Lying, Flower, Light, Human Love

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller (1844). “Summer on the Lakes”, p.73, Ardent Media

Topics: Self, Armor, Slave, Infatuated

If any individual live too much in relations, so that he becomes a stranger to the resources of his own nature, he falls, after a while, into a distraction, or imbecility, from which he can only be cured by a time of isolation, which gives the renovating fountains time to rise up.

source: - Margaret Fuller (2012). “Woman in the Nineteenth Century”, p.80, Courier Corporation

Topics: Fall, Giving, Solitude, Imbecility

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller (1856). “At home and abroad”, p.229

Topics: Past, Dust, Voice

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.

Topics: Thinking, Heaven, Desert

Our friends should be our incentives to right, but not only our guiding, but our prophetic, stars. To love by right is much, to love by faith is more; both are the entire love, without which heart, mind, and soul cannot be alike satisfied. We love and ought to love one another, not merely for the absolute worth of each, but on account of a mutual fitness of temporary character.

Topics: Friends, Stars, Heart, Heart Mind And Soul

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

source: - Margaret Fuller (2008). “Woman in the Ninteenth Century (EasyRead Large Bold Edition)”, p.370, ReadHowYouWant.com

Topics: Mind, Earth, Treasure, Drudgery

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller (1860). “At Home and Abroad, Or, Things and Thoughts in America and Europe”, p.8

Topics: Writing, Hours, Scene, Full Life

Those have not lived who have not seen Rome.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Woman in the 19th century, and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition, and duties of woman”, p.427

Topics: Rome

... the Power who gave a power, by its mere existence, signifies that it must be brought out towards perfection.

source: - Margaret Fuller (2012). “Woman in the Nineteenth Century”, p.65, Courier Corporation

Topics: Perfection, Existence, Mere

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.

Topics: Mean, Thinking, Years

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, Robert N. Hudspeth (1984). “The letters of Margaret Fuller”, Cornell Univ Pr

Topics: Expression, Growth, Degrees

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Woman in the 19th century, and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition, and duties of woman”, p.207

Topics: Rays, Complaining, Genius

Be what you would seem to be - or, if you'd like it put more simply - a house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.

Topics: Home, Fire, House

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.

Topics: World, Given, Has Beens

It does not follow because many books are written by persons born in America that there exists an American literature. Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along the shore.

source: - Margaret Fuller (1846). “Papers on Literature and Art”

Topics: Book, Reading, Europe, American Literature

A man who means to think and write a great deal must, after six and twenty, learn to read with his fingers.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke”, p.61

Topics: Writing, Mean, Men

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.

source: - "Woman in the Nineteenth Century". Book by Margaret Fuller, 1845.

Topics: Believe, Inspiration, Creativity, Clearness, Admonition

We doubt not the destiny of our country that she is to accomplish great things for human nature, and be the mother of a nobler race than the world has yet known. But she has been so false to the scheme made out at her nativity, that it is now hard to say which way that destiny points.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke”, p.108

Topics: Country, Mother, Destiny, Nativity

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.

Topics: Beauty, Truth, Flower

The public must learn how to cherish the nobler and rarer plants, and to plant the aloe, able to wait a hundred years for it's bloom, or it's garden will contain, presently, nothing but potatoes and pot-herbs.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Joel Myerson (1978). “Margaret Fuller: Essays on American Life and Letters”, p.384, Rowman & Littlefield

Topics: Learning, Garden, Years

Let 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.

source: - Margaret Fuller (1869). “Life Without and Life Within: Or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems”, p.230

Topics: Class, Mad, Suffering

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller, James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Channing (1852). “Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli”, p.315

Topics: Prayer, Suffering, Ransom

Everywhere the fatal spirit of imitation, of reference to European standards, penetrates and threatens to blight whatever of original growth might adorn the soil.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Woman in the 19th century, and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition, and duties of woman”, p.47

Topics: Growth, Might, Soil, Blight

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller (1860). “At Home and Abroad, Or, Things and Thoughts in America and Europe”, p.199

Topics: Beauty, Art, Interesting

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller (1992). “The Essential Margaret Fuller”, p.148, Rutgers University Press

Topics: Juice, May, Facts

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, Margaret F. Ossoli (2008). “Woman in the Ninteenth Century (EasyRead Large Edition)”, p.109, ReadHowYouWant.com

Topics: Thinking, Law, Greek

With 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!

source: - "The Woman and the Myth: Margaret Fuller's Life and Writings".

Topics: Life, Sweet, Overcoming, Sweet Life

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

source: - Margaret Fuller (1846). “Papers on Literature and Art: A short essay on critics. A dialogue. The two Herberts. The prose works of Milton. The life of Sir James Mackintosh. Modern British poets. The modern drama. Dialogue, containing sundry glosses on poetic texts”, p.5

Topics: Writing, Criticism, Use

After having admired the women of Rome, say to yourself, 'I too am beautiful!' ... In you I met a real person. I need not give you any other praise.

Topics: Beautiful, Real, Rome, Real Person

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, Bell Gale Chevigny (1976). “The Woman and the Myth: Margaret Fuller's Life and Writings”, p.261, UPNE

Topics: Inspirational, Intellectual, Fancy

You see how wide the gulf that separates me from the Christian church.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Bell Gale Chevigny (1976). “The Woman and the Myth: Margaret Fuller's Life and Writings”, p.170, UPNE

Topics: Christian, Church, Atheism

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke”, p.110

Topics: Ambitious, Genius, Admiration, Productions

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.

Topics: Art, Gardening, Doe

The 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.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Bell Gale Chevigny (1976). “The Woman and the Myth: Margaret Fuller's Life and Writings”, p.134, UPNE

Topics: Heart, Character, Long, Suffocating, Recoil

Tragedy 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.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke”, p.173

Topics: Mistake, Loneliness, Mountain

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Woman in the 19th century, and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition, and duties of woman”, p.4

Topics: Simple, Greatness, Expression, Observers

I know of no inquiry which the impulses of man suggests that is forbidden to the resolution of man to pursue.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Woman in the 19th century, and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition, and duties of woman”, p.72

Topics: Wisdom, Men, Inquiry

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, Joel Myerson (1978). “Margaret Fuller: Essays on American Life and Letters”, p.51, Rowman & Littlefield

Topics: Mind, Criticism, Recluse, Essays

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.

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Woman in the 19th century, and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition, and duties of woman”, p.188

Topics: Fashion, Punishment, Opera

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

source: - Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Woman in the 19th century, and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition, and duties of woman”, p.7

Topics: Grief, Visitors, Temples