Ralph Waldo Emerson

Liberty is slow fruit. It is never cheap; it is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man.

Revolutions go not backward.

The first wealth is health.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.

I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable – any real insight or broad human sentiment.

A mother’s yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man.

Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the book-worm.

The eyes indicate the antiquity of the soul.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

We need much less than we think we need.

I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

The desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.

Rest in reason; move in passion.

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.

I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.