Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fullness and completion?

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

Wouldst thou shut up the avenues of ill, Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.

Travel is a fools paradise.

A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.

When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.

A man’s style is his mind’s voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices.

See only that thou work and thou canst not escape the reward.

As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.

The responsibility of tolerance lies in those who have the wider vision.

Only poetry inspires poetry.

If you have inner peace, nobody can force you to be a slave to the outer reality.

Poor fellow! I think he is in love with you.’ I am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl’s life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her… I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me.

I respect not his labors, his farm where everything has its price, who would carry the landscape, who would carry his God, to market, if he could get anything for him; who goes to market for his god as it is; on whose farm nothing grows free, whose fields bear no crops, whose meadows no flowers, whose trees no fruits, but dollars.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

Hurricanes are named after people, baby, and I hope you know that falling in love with me will be so much more treacherous than boarding up the windows and waiting for me to pass.

History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.