Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature… She pardons no mistakes. Her yea is yea, and her nay, nay.

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

Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods loved him because men hated him.

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.

Let us not look east and west for materials of conversation, but rest in presence and unity. A just feeling will fast enough supply fuel for discourse, if speaking be more grateful than silence. When people come to see us, we foolishly prattle, lest we be inhospitable. But things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. A lady of my acquaintance said, I don’t care so much for what they say as I do for what makes them say it.

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits, which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves.

I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe.

The secret in education lies in respecting the student.

I am a democrat only on principle, not by instinct – nobody is that. Doubtless some people say they are, but this world is grievously given to lying.

When a man says money can do anything, that settles it: he hasn’t got any.

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you.

You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say Why not?

Men have become the tools of their trade.

I believe that he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more sorry.