Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

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.

The miracles of genius always rest on profound convictions which refuse to be analyzed.

There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says, Anywhere but here.

Stay at home in your mind. Don’t recite other people’s opinions. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

If thou art clean and warm, it is sufficient; for more doth but rob the Poor, and please the Wanton.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

Every one is a genius, more or less. No one is so physically sound that no part of him will be even a little unsound, and no one is so diseased but that some part of him will be healthy — so no man is so mentally and morally sound, but that he will be in part both mad and wicked; and no man is so mad and wicked but he will be sensible and honourable in part. In like manner there is no genius who is not also a fool, and no fool who is not also a genius.

A good scare is worth more than good advice.

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.

He who praises every body, praises nobody.

In nature nothing can be given. All things are sold.

I do not hold that we should rearm in order to fight. I hold that we should rearm in order to parley.

Gold will be slave or master.

When setting out on a journey, do not seek advice from those who have never left home.

Temperate temperance is best; intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance.

All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.