Ralph Waldo Emerson

The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear.

Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual.

Riding a horse is not a gentle hobby, to be picked up and laid down like a game of solitaire. It is a grand passion. It seizes a person whole and once it has done so, he/she will have to accept that his life will be radically changed.

When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world.

What your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul’s emphasis is always right.

I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

Logic is like the sword – those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.

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

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

When the righteous man truth away from his righteousness that he hath committed and doeth that which is neither quite lawful nor quite right, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost in holiness.

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gongthese are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.