Margaret Fuller Quotes (35 Quotes)

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

There are two modes of criticism. One which crushes to earth without mercy all the humble buds of Phantasy, all the plants that, though green and fruitful, are also a prey to insects or have suffered by drought. It weeds well the garden, and cannot believe the weed in its native soil may be a pretty, graceful plant. There is another mode which enters into the natural history of every thing that breathes and lives, which believes no impulse to be entirely in vain, which scrutinizes circumstances, motive and object before it condemns, and believes there is a beauty in natural form, if its law and purpose be understood.

Writing her a message that her other friends can see conveys how meaningful her friendship was, so her memory is able to stay alive.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

'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.'

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.

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.

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.

'... 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. '

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

I guess I felt compelled to express the loss I was feeling and the fact that I was praying for her. I didn't really think about whether she would receive my message or not.

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

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

Nature provides exceptions to every rule.

Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.

I am suffocated and lost when I have not the bright feeling of progression.

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.

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

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