Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men are respectable only as they respect.

Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.

My chief want in life is someone who shall make me do what I can.

Culture is one thing and varnish is another.

We must hold a man amenable to reason for the choice of his daily craft or profession. It is not an excuse any longer for his deeds that they are the custom of his trade. What business has he with an evil trade?

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.

I often think that men don’t understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.

Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being.

Live, let live, and help live

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.

I always like people who have developed long and hard, particularly through introspection and a lot of dedication. I think that what they arrive at is, usually, deeper and more beautiful than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning.

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.

I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot.

The more you know the less you understand.

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

A private Life is to be preferred; the Honor and Gain of publick Posts, bearing no proportion with the Comfort of it

If you want the time to pass quickly, just give your note for 90 days.

You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he’d said ‘What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?’ He wouldn’t even have started.

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.