Ralph Waldo Emerson

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.

By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself; nothing, but the triumph of principles.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Every man passes his life in the search after friendship.

It’s easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your own ignorance. That’s America. So the challenge for us is, are we ready for change?

I have to live for others and not for myself: that’s middle-class morality.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.

The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let things go.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

One of the benefits of a college education is to show the boy its little avail.

Burning logs can carry on quite a conversation! … Have you ever heard apple wood talking? It’s the most loquacious of all. You really can’t get a word in edgeways.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.

Our faith comes in moments… yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences.

Your most precious, valued possessions and your greatest powers are invisible and intangible. No one can take them. You, and you alone, can give them. You will receive abundance for your giving.

The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.

Woman is a ray of God. She is not that earthly beloved: she is creative, not created.

The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.