Margaret Fuller Quotes & Sayings

The life of the soul is incalculable. — Margaret Fuller

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. — Margaret Fuller

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. — Margaret Fuller

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 ... — Margaret Fuller

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. — Margaret Fuller

Whatever the soul knows how to seek, it cannot fail to obtain. — Margaret Fuller

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

The critic is beneath the maker, but is his needed friend. The critic is not a base caviler, but the younger brother of genius. Next to invention is the power of interpreting invention; next to beauty the power of appreciating beauty. And of making others appreciate it ... — Margaret Fuller

Genius will live and thrive without training, but it does not the less reward the watering pot and the pruning knife. — Margaret Fuller

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

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. — 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

Artists are always young. — Margaret Fuller

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

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

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

The Arabian horse will not plough well, nor can the plough-horse be rode to play the jereed. — Margaret Fuller

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

The 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 Fuller

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

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

Be what you would seem to be. — Margaret Fuller

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

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. — 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. — Margaret Fuller

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. — Margaret Fuller

Here, as elsewhere, the gain of creation consists always in the growth of individual minds, which live and aspire, as flowers bloom and birds sing, in the midst of morasses; and in the continual development of that thought, the thought of human destiny, which is given to eternity adequately to express, and which ages of failure only seemingly impede. — Margaret Fuller

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

Nature provides exceptions to every rule. — Margaret Fuller

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

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. — Margaret Fuller

What a difference it makes to come home to a child! — Margaret Fuller

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

With the intellect, I always have-always shall overcome, but that is not half of the work of life. The life-oh my God-shall the life never be sweet? — Margaret Fuller

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

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

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

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

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

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. — Margaret Fuller

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

Certainly 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 Fuller

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. — Margaret Fuller

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

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

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. — Margaret Fuller

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. — Margaret Fuller

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. — Margaret Fuller

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

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. — Margaret Fuller

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

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

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

Preparations are good in life, prologues ruinous. — Margaret Fuller

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

We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to women as freely as to men. If you ask me what offices they may fill, I reply-any. I do not care what case you put; let them be sea captains, if you will. — Margaret Fuller

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

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

Beware of over-great pleasure in being popular or even beloved. As far as an amiable disposition and powers of entertainment make you so, it is a happiness; but if there is one grain of plausibility, it is poison. — Margaret Fuller

Our desires, once realized, haunt us again less readily. — Margaret Fuller

Today is a reader; Tomorrow is a leader — Margaret Fuller

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. — Margaret Fuller

There is some danger lest there be no real religion in the heart which craves too much daily sympathy. — 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

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

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

I have urged on woman independence of man, not that I do not think the sexes mutually needed by one another, but because in woman this fact has led to an excessive devotion, which has cooled love, degraded marriage and prevented it her sex from being what it should be to itself or the other. I wish woman to live, first for God's sake. Then she will not take what is not fit for her from a sense of weakness and poverty. Then if she finds what she needs in man embodied, she will know how to love and be worthy of being loved. — Margaret Fuller

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. — Margaret Fuller

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. — Margaret Fuller

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

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. — Margaret Fuller

There is such a rebound from parental influence that it generally seems that the child makes use of the directions given by the parent only to avoid the prescribed path. — Margaret Fuller

Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live. — Margaret Fuller

I accept the universe! — Margaret Fuller

Let every woman, who has once begun to think, examine herself — Margaret Fuller

Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. — Margaret Fuller

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

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. — Margaret Fuller

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

The character and history of each child may be a new and poetic experience to the parent, if he will let it. — Margaret Fuller

There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman. — Margaret Fuller

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

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. — Margaret Fuller

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

I now know all the people worth knowing in America and I find no intellect comparable to my own. — 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 the shore. — Margaret Fuller

Truth is the nursing mother of genius. — 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

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

Our capacities, our instincts for this our present sphere are but half developed. Let us be completely natural; before we trouble ourselves with the supernatural. — Margaret Fuller

A house is no home unless it contain food and fire for the mind as well as for the body. — Margaret Fuller

If you have knowledge , let others light their candles in it. — Margaret Fuller

Harmony exists no less in difference than in likeness, if only the same key-note govern both parts. — Margaret Fuller

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

But her eye, that torch or the soul, is untamed, and in the intensity of her reading, we see a soul invincibly young in faith and hope. — 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

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. — Margaret Fuller

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