Ralph Waldo Emerson

No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it.

Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a Declaration of Independence, or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or to act.

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.

There is this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means; draw it all out, and hold him to it.

Conversation enriches the understanding; but solitude is the school of genius.

Republics abound in young civilians who believe that the laws make the city, that grave modifications of the policy and modes of living and employments of the population, that commerce, education and religion may be voted in or out; and that any measure, though it were absurd, may be imposed on a people if only you can get sufficient voices to make it a law. But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow and not lead the character and progress of the citizen; that the form of government which prevails is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it. The law is only a memorandum.

The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume; but a good stomach excels them all.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

Security will produce danger.

It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.

Trust yourself. You’ve survived a lot, and you’ll survive whatever is coming.

All diseases run into one, old age.

After a few months’ acquaintance with European coffee, one’s mind weakens, and his faith with it, and he begins to wonder if the rich beverage of home, with its clotted layer of yellow cream on top of it, is not a mere dream after all, and a thing which never existed.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

Real practice has no purpose or direction, so it can include everything that comes.

What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.

There is properly no history; only biography.

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