Ralph Waldo Emerson

We fly to beauty as an asylum from the terrors of finite nature.

Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.

Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.

In failing circumstances no one can be relied on to keep their integrity.

Blame is safer than praise.

The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.

It is a brave thing to have courage to be an individual; it is also, perhaps, a lonely thing. But it is better than not being an individual, which is to be nobody at all.

I think that age is irrelevant. We’re all pretty much spiritual beings – I consider myself to be about eighty-five. I feel like I’m ancient, like two thousand years old.

His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

The aim of spiritual life is to awaken a joyful freedom, a benevolent and compassionate heart in spite of everything.

It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have it, it requires ten times as much skill to keep it.

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.

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.

Ignorance… is a painless evil; so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.

Remember, when life’s path is steep, to keep your mind even.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.

The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.

You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.

Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence. The great Sufi poet Rumi wrote, Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being.