Ralph Waldo Emerson

The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.

The stupidity of men always invites the insolence of power.

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

He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.

Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim.

Coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it’s what he descends to that shames the human race.

There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one. You cannot make any useful contribution in life unless you do this.

The search after the great men is the dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of manhood.

Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.

What we learn only through the ears makes less impression upon our minds than what is presented to the trustworthy eye.

To hazard much to get much has more of avarice than wisdom.

Gold will be slave or master.

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

Temperate temperance is best; intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance.

Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.