Ralph Waldo Emerson

The highest compact we can make with our fellow is – Let there be truth between us two forevermore.

All the great ages have been ages of belief.

The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, unhonored, and unpaid task of observation. He is the world’s eye.

All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.

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

The less government we have the better.

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss.

He that has more knowledge than judgment, is made for another man’s use more than his own.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation — a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something.

Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.

Only the traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better.

I’ve also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It’s sure to be a phony.

This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.

To him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political servitude, were never taught by those who shared the serenity of Nature. For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention.