Ralph Waldo Emerson

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.

The laws of each are convertible into the laws of any other.

The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.

Wherever work is done, victory is attained.

Dear to us are those who love us… but dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life; they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit, and urge us to new and unattempted performances.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own, to the world.

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.

Prejudice not being funded on reason cannot be removed by argument.

I never think at all when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well.

Acorns were good until bread was found.

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

Your fingers caress my heart strings, shaping a silent sonnet in notes of love. Transcending space and time, bathing the ether in perfect harmony.

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

Act, if you like, but you do it at your peril. Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds. Each man seeks those of different quality from his own, and such as are good of their kind; that is, he seeks other men, and the rest.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.