Ralph Waldo Emerson

The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.

Earth laughs in flowers.

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars.

Every man has his own vocation, talent is the call.

I didn’t find my friends; the good Lord gave them to me.

Many might go to Heaven with half the labor they go to hell.

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.

There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

…with the black marble which gives the fireplace the air of a miniature family vault, to suggest early Victorian commercial respectability, belief in money, Bible fetichism, fear of hell always at war with fear of poverty, instinctive horror of the passionate character of art, love and Roman Catholic religion, and all the first fruits of plutocracy in the early generations of the industrial revolution.

When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.

Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.

He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.

He that has more knowledge than judgment, is made for another man’s use more than his own.

We know there is intention and purpose in the universe, because there is intention and purpose in us.

It’s all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.

Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.

A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it.

A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.