Ralph Waldo Emerson

Cities give us collision. ‘Tis said, London and New York take the nonsense out of a man.

The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.

There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into power.

The city is recruited from the country.

The greatest genius is the most indebted person.

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.

An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.

You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can.

He has been a doctor a year now and has had two patients, no, three, I think – yes, it was three; I attended their funerals.

Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

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.

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods.

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

Security will produce danger.

He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.

Sometimes if I see negative things it really doesn’t faze me, because you’ve got to be tough and you’ve got to be you.

What we become depends on what our fathers teach us.

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.