Margaret Fuller

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

“A house is no home unless it contain food and fire for the mind as well as for the body.”

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

“Reverence the highest, have patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“Nature provides exceptions to every rule.”

“The especial genius of women I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency.”

“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.”

“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.”

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