Ralph Waldo Emerson

As men’s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.

Life is short, but there is always time for courtesy.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.

Mountains will go into labour, and a silly little mouse will be born.

Pleasure that is obtained by unreasonable and unsuitable cost, must always end in pain.

A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.

Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.

Only trust theyself, and another shall noet betray thee

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

It were better to be of no church, than to be bitter for any.

We’re so infatuated with studying labels that we forget to read between the lines of one another.

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.