Margaret Fuller - Life Quotes

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I have a vague expectation of some crisis, — I know not what. But it has long seemed, that, in the year 1850, I should stand on a plateau in the ascent of life, where I should be allowed to pause for a while, and take more clear and commanding views than ever before. Yet my life proceeds as regularly as the fates of a Greek tragedy, and I can but accept the pages as they turn.

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

Margaret Fuller
There are noble books but one wants the breath of life sometimes. And I see no divine person. I myself am more divine than any I see — I think that is enough to say about them...

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

Margaret Fuller
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.

Margaret Fuller
Perhaps it is a weakness to confide to you embryo designs, which never may glow into life, or mock me by their failure.

Margaret Fuller
Might the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy be laid to heart! Might a sense of the true aims of life elevate the tone of politics and trade, till public and private honor become identical!

Margaret Fuller
I fear I have not one good word to say this fair morning, though the sun shines so encouragingly on the distant hills and gentle river and the trees are in their festive hues. I am not festive, though contented. When obliged to give myself to the prose of life, as I am on this occasion of being established in a new home I like to do the thing, wholly and quite, - to weave my web for the day solely from the grey yarn.

Margaret Fuller
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.

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.

Margaret Fuller
Chance cannot touch me! Time cannot hush me!
Fear, Hope, and Longing, at strife,
Sink as I rise, on, on, upward forever,
Gathering strength, gaining breath, — naught can sever
Me from the Spirit of Life!

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

Margaret Fuller
Your prudence, my wise friend, allows too little room for the mysterious whisperings of life.

Margaret Fuller
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. Every spot is seen, every chasm revealed.

Margaret Fuller
I am immortal! I know it! I feel it!
Hope floods my heart with delight!
Running on air mad with life dizzy, reeling,
Upward I mount, — faith is sight, life is feeling,
Hope is the day-star of might!

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

Margaret Fuller
What concerns me now is that my life be a beautiful, powerful, in a word, a complete life of its kind.

Margaret Fuller
Those who are not intimately and permanently linked with others, are thrown upon themselves; and, if they do not there find peace and incessant life, there is none to flatter them that they are not very poor, and very mean.
A position which so constantly admonishes, may be of inestimable benefit. The person may gain, undistracted by other relationships, a closer communion with the one. Such a use is made of it by saints and sibyls.

Margaret Fuller
Thou art greatly wise, my friend, and ever respected by me, yet I find not in your theory or your scope, room enough for the lyric inspirations, or the mysterious whispers of life. To me it seems that it is madder never to abandon oneself, than often to be infatuated; better to be wounded, a captive, and a slave, than always to walk in armor.

Margaret Fuller
There are to whom each symbol is a mask;
The life of love is a mysterious task;
They want no answer, for they would not ask.

Margaret Fuller
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 its shores.

Margaret Fuller
Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow.

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

Margaret Fuller
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.

Margaret Fuller
O, were life but longer, and my strength greater! Ever I am bewildered by the riches of existence, had I but more time to open the oysters, and get out the pearls. Yet some are mine, if only for a necklace or rosary.

Margaret Fuller