Ralph Waldo Emerson

The eloquent man is he who is no eloquent speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a certain belief.

If a man owns land, the land owns him.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.

Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.

No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back.

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

The chief mourner does not always attend the funeral.

You cannot be a hero without being a coward.

It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy – but he who has shown the better temper.

Tis a superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the same chemical atoms.

Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.

We must set up a strong present tense against all rumors of wrath, past and to come.

It was not that she was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands of her fine organism.

Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

Vulgarity in a king flatters the majority of the nation.

I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.

Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.

When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.

For too long I have silenced my heart, that now, when I give it the opportunity to speak, it no longer remembers its voice. Locked away, it forgot what it’s like to be free; to roam. Imprisoned within loneliness, I fear Stockholm syndrome has developed.