Ralph Waldo Emerson

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

The stupidity of men always invites the insolence of power.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

The true artist has the planet for his pedestal; the adventurer, after years of strife, has nothing broader than his shoes.

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.

For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life;

Take away the danger and remove the restraint, and wayward nature runs free.

The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity.

Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.

Half a man’s wisdom goes with his courage.

I see the whole concept of Generation X implies that everyone has lost hope.

If you believe in fate, believe in it, at least, for your good.

The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

The secret in education lies in respecting the student.

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

Our spontaneous action is always the best. You cannot, with your best deliberation and heed, come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you.

As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.