Ralph Waldo Emerson

Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.

Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow.

We are prisoners of ideas.

All mankind love a lover.

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.

Sorrow makes us children again.

Be ever on your guard what you say of anybody and to whom.

I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my fathers house to believe in democracy. Trust the peoplethat was his message.

We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly.

There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.

During my life, I have had a few nightmares which happened to me while I was wide awake.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.

Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.