Ralph Waldo Emerson

The less government we have the better.

All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.

A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.

Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.

Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.

Tis very certain that each man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of men, and we are always learning to read it. A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.

My finger can point to the moon, but my finger is not the moon. You don’t have to become my finger, nor do you have to worship my finger. You have to forget my finger, and look at where it is pointing.

If thou wouldn’t conquer thy weakness thou must not gratify it.

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn’t!

No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

I’m only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler.

To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.

Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.

We all really basically have a lot of magic … it’s only those of us that choose to accept it that really understand it.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

If I shall sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I’m sure that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for.

Rituals are important. Nowadays it’s hip not to be married. I’m not interested in being hip.