Ralph Waldo Emerson

We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.

Fame is proof that the people are gullible.

Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds.

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

Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables.

The first thing a great person does, is make us realize the insignificance of circumstance.

No poems can please for long or live that are written by water drinkers.

If you employed study, thinking, and planning time daily, you could develop and use the power that can change the course of your destiny.

We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten.

Life is one long process of getting tired.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

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

No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.

Genius Borrows nobly.

Man is God’s highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.

The greatest man in history was the poorest.

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.

As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!

It’s a good thing to be foolishly gay once in a while.

No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.