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Margaret Fuller

92 quotes

“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 (1810–1850) first seen 1838 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1 March 1838); published in The Letters of Margaret Fuller vol. I, p. 327, , edited by Robert N. Hudspeth (1983)
“Beware of over-great pleasure in being popular or even beloved.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1840 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to her brother, (20 December 1840) as quoted in The Feminist Papers (1973) by Alice Rossi
“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.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Recipe to prevent the cold of January from utterly destroying life" (30 January 1841), quoted in Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1898) by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, p. 97
“Men disappoint me so, I disappoint myself so, yet courage, patience, shuffle the cards ...”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Reverend William Henry Channing (21 February 1841) quoted in Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1898) by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, p. 112
“It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notes from Cambridge, Massachusetts (July 1842) published in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852), Vol. II, p. 64
“How many persons must there be who cannot worship alone since they are content with so little.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1843 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Rev. W. H. Channing (31 December 1843) quoted in Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1898) by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, p. 184
“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 (1810–1850) first seen 1843 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Summer On The Lakes, in 1843 (1844)
“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.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Article, The New York Daily Tribune (22 February 1845), p. 19; quoted in Brilliant Bylines (1986) by Barbara Belford
“Women are the best helpers of one another. Let them think; let them act; till they know what they need. But if you ask me what offices they may fill, I reply-any. Let them be sea-captains if you will.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1845) Attributed in Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History’’ (1979)
“The use of criticism, in periodical writing, is to sift, not to stamp a work.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1846 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Short Essay on Critics" in Papers on Literature and Art (1846), p. 5
“Genius will live and thrive without training, but it does not the less reward the watering-pot and pruning-knife.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1846 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Life of Sir James Mackintosh" in Papers on Literature and Art (1846), p. 50
“Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852), Vol. I, p. 132
“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 (1810–1850) first seen 1846 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: American Literature" in Papers on Literature and Art (1846), p. 122
“Essays, entitled critical, are epistles addressed to the public, through which the mind of the recluse relieves itself of its impressions.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Short Essay on Critics" in Art, Literature and the Drama (1858)
“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.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Modern Drama" in Art, Literature and the Drama (1858)
“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.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: American Facts" in Life Without and Life Within (1860) edited by Arthur Buckminster Fuller, p. 108
“For precocity some great price is always demanded sooner or later in life.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1898) by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, p. 289
“Man tells his aspiration in his God; but in his demon he shows his depth of experience; and casts light into the cavern through which he worked his cause up to the cheerful day.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1898) by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, p. 289-91
“I accept the universe.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) by William James
“I now know all the people worth knowing in America, and I find no intellect comparable to my own.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As reported by Ralph Waldo Emerson in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1884) Vol. 1, Pt. 4.
“I am 'too fiery' … yet I wish to be seen as I am, and would lose all rather than soften away anything.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by Joseph Jay Deiss in "Humanity, said Edgar Allan Poe, is divided into Men, Women, and Margaret Fuller" in American Heritage magazine, Vol. 23, Issue 5 (August 1972)
“Your prudence, my wise friend, allows too little room for the mysterious whisperings of life.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Ralph Waldo Emerson, as quoted in "Humanity, said Edgar Allan Poe, is divided into Men, Women, and Margaret Fuller" Joseph Jay Deiss in American Heritage magazine, Vol. 23, Issue 5 (August 1972)
“You are intellect, I am life!”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Ralph Waldo Emerson, as quoted in "Humanity, said Edgar Allan Poe, is divided into Men, Women, and Margaret Fuller" Joseph Jay Deiss in American Heritage magazine, Vol. 23, Issue 5 (August 1972)
“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 (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who sees the meaning of the flower uprooted in the ploughed field? The ploughman who does not look beyond its boundaries and does not raise his eyes from the ground ? No — but the poet who sees that field in its relations with the universe, and looks oftener to the sky than on the ground. Only the dreamer shall understand realities, though, in truth, his dreaming must not be out of proportion to his waking!”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There exists in the minds of men a tone of feeling toward women as toward slaves.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let it not be said, wherever there is energy or creative genius, 'She has a masculine mind.' This by no means argues a willing want of generosity toward Woman. Man is as generous towards her as he knows how to be. Wherever she has herself arisen in national or private history, and nobly shone forth in any form of excellence, men have received her, not only willingly, but with triumph.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The especial genius of Woman I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is with just that hope that we welcome everything that tends to strengthen the fibre and develop the nature on more sides. When the intellect and affections are in harmony; when intellectual consciousness is calm and deep; inspiration will not be confounded with fancy.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Harmony exists no less in difference than in likeness, if only the same key-note govern both parts. Woman the poem, man the poet; woman the heart, man the head; such divisions are only important when they are never to be transcended. If nature is never bound down, nor the voice of inspiration stifled, that is enough.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What Woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The position I early was enabled to take was one of self-reliance. And were all women as sure of their wants as I was, the result would be the same. But they are so overloaded with precepts and guardians who think that nothing is so much to be dreaded for a woman as originality of thought or character, that their minds are impeded with doubts till they lose their chance of fair, free proportions. The difficulty is to get them to the point from which they shall naturally develop self-respect, and learn self-help.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Woman, self-centred, would never be absorbed by any relation it would be only an experience to her as to man. It is a vulgar error that love, a love, to Woman is her whole existence; she also is born for Truth and Love in their universal energy.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every relation, every gradation of nature is incalculably precious, but only to the soul which is poised upon itself, and to whom no loss, no change, can bring dull discord, for it is in harmony with the central soul. 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 becured by a time of isolation, which gives the renovating fountains time to rise up. With a society it is the same.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Safety is not to be secured, then, by the wisest foresight. I shall embark more composedly in our merchant-ship, praying fervently, indeed, that it may not be my lot to lose my boy at sea, either by unsolaced illness, or amid the howling waves; or, if so, that Ossoli, Angelo, and I may go together, and that the anguish may be brief.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (21 April 1850)
“I am absurdly fearful, and various omens have combined to give me a dark feeling. I am become indeed a miserable coward, for the sake of Angelino. I fear heat and cold, fear the voyage, fear biting poverty. I hope I shall not be forced to be as brave for him, as I have been for myself, and that, if I succeed to rear him, he will be neither a weak nor a bad man. But I love him too much! In case of mishap, however, I shall perish with my husband and my child, and we may be transferred to some happier state.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (Spring 1850)
“I feel perfectly willing to stay my threescore years and ten, if it be thought I need so much tuition from this planet; but it seems to me that my future upon earth will soon close. It may be terribly trying, but it will not be so very long, now. God will transplant the root, if he wills to rear it into fruit-bearing.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (Spring 1850)
“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 (1810–1850) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (Spring 1850)
“I long so much to see you! Should anything hinder our meeting upon earth, think of your daughter, as one who always wished, at least, to do her duty, and who always cherished you, according as her mind opened to discover excellence. … I hope we shall be able to pass some time together yet, in this world. But, if God decrees otherwise, — here and HEREAFTER, — my dearest mother, "Your loving child, MARGARET.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Last letter to her mother, (14 May 1850)
“Art can only be truly art by presenting an adequate outward symbol of some fact in the interior life.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The shrine is vowed to freedom, but, my friend, Freedom is but a means to gain an end. Freedom should build the temple, but the shrine Be consecrate to thought still more divine. The human bliss which angel hopes foresaw Is liberty to comprehend the law. Give, then, thy book a larger scope and frame, Comprising means and end in Truth's great name.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In times of old, as we are told, When men more child-like at the feet Of Jesus sat, than now, A chivalry was known more bold Than ours, and yet of stricter vow, Of worship more complete.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Knights of the Rosy Cross, they bore Its weight within the heart, but wore Without, devotion's sign in glistening ruby bright; The gall and vinegar they drank alone, But to the world at large would only own The wine of faith, sparkling with rosy light.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The pass-word now is lost To that initiation full and free; Daily we pay the cost Of our slow schooling for divine degree. We know no means to feed an undying lamp; Our lights go out in every wind or damp.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Though deepest dark our efforts should enfold, Unwearied mine to find the vein of gold; Forget not oft to lift the hope on high; The rosy dawn again shall fill the sky.And by that lovely light, all truth-revealed, The cherished forms which sad distrust concealed, Transfigured, yet the same, will round us stand, The kindred angels of a faithful band; Ruby and ebon cross both cast aside, No lamp is needed, for the night has died.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be to the best thou knowest ever true, Is all the creed; Then, by thy talisman of rosy hue, Or fenced with thorns that wearing thou must bleed, Or gentle pledge of Love's prophetic view, The faithful steps it will securely lead.Happy are all who reach that shore, And bathe in heavenly day, Happiest are those who high the banner bore, To marshal others on the way; Or waited for them, fainting and way-worn, By burdens overborne.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source