Ralph Waldo Emerson

The soul’s emphasis is always right.

Blame is safer than praise.

The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.

For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?

Europe extends to the Alleghenies; America lies beyond.

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

As a child I used to read Gone with the Wind over and over again. I wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara. I never wanted to believe that it was possible that there could be infidelity. I never wanted to be believe that it was even possible for a man to look another way, even for a moment. My bubble of monogamy was pierced in a harsh way.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution – such call I good books.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

Why not blame the libraries? They’re full of violent books.

All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.

Books are the mirrors of the soul.

We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages.

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

A multitude of books distracts the mind.