Ralph Waldo Emerson

A great man stands on God. A small man on a great man.

Each work of art excludes the world, concentrates attention on itself. For the time it is the only thing worth doing –to do just that; be it a sonnet, a statue, a landscape, an outline head of Caesar, or an oration. Presently we return to the sight of another that globes itself into a whole as did the first, for example, a beautiful garden; and nothing seems worth doing in life but laying out a garden.

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.

In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.

That which builds is better than that which is built.

At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any other exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.

Books are the best of things if well used; if abused, among the worst. They are good for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.

As a child I used to read Gone with the Wind over and over again. I wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara. I never wanted to believe that it was possible that there could be infidelity. I never wanted to be believe that it was even possible for a man to look another way, even for a moment. My bubble of monogamy was pierced in a harsh way.

I love books.

So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

Why not blame the libraries? They’re full of violent books.

The last book I read was the book I’ve been rereading most of my life, The Fountainhead.

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book.

If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.