Ralph Waldo Emerson

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

Nothing external to you has any power over you.

He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

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

He that does good for good’s sake seeks neither paradise nor reward, but he is sure of both in the end.

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.

Suppose the world were only one of God’s jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?

All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.

Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.

The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.

We had the sky up there, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss whether they was made or just happened.

Enjoy yourself – it’s later than you think.

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.

Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

Nations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world.

Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.

We have reached a point today where labor-saving devices are good only when they do not throw the worker out of his job.