Ralph Waldo Emerson

The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.

Murder in the murderer is no such ruinous thought as poets and romancers will have it; it does not unsettle him, or fright him from his ordinary notice of trifles; it is an act quite easy to be contemplated.

We are wiser than we know.

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.

The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is – Imbecility; imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and, even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity, custom, and fear.

Talent for talent’s sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?

Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.

If you develop rules, never have more than ten.

We are often deterred from crime by the disgrace of others.

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

The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.

Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

Every great movement must experience three stages ridicule, discussion, adoption.

Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.

A fly may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.

Wisdom is better than silver and gold. I was hopeless, now I’m on hope road.

For too long I have silenced my heart, that now, when I give it the opportunity to speak, it no longer remembers its voice. Locked away, it forgot what it’s like to be free; to roam. Imprisoned within loneliness, I fear Stockholm syndrome has developed.

Logic is a poor guide compared with custom.