Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.

Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, What it will do with you?

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

A man is a god in ruins.

A man’s wife has more power over him than the state has.

Every man believes that he has greater possibilities.

My reputation grows with every failure.

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

It took me twenty years of studied self-restraint, aided by the natural decay of my faculties, to make myself dull enough to be accepted as a serious person by the British public.

Your own safety is at stake when your neighbor’s house is in flames.

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

Man was made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don’t know anything and can’t read.

God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

It doesn’t matter that your dream came true if you spent your whole life sleeping.