Ralph Waldo Emerson

So far as a person thinks; they are free.

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relationship is a new word.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

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

A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.

Birth and death are so closely related that one could not destroy either without destroying the other at the same time. It is extinction that makes creation possible.

We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected

What do sad complaints avail if the offense is not cut down by punishment.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.

The worst of charity is that the lives you are asked to preserve are not worth preserving.

The laws of each are convertible into the laws of any other.

That’s what I can’t stand. I know I’ll bounce back, and that’s what I can’t stand.

I want to be free; to escape. I use my pen as oars; the paper as my boat. I fill these pages to keep me afloat. I ride the waves of turmoil, so I can paddle away to calmer seas.

If you protect a man from folly, you will soon have a nation of fools.

Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.

I believe that every person is born with talent.