Ralph Waldo Emerson

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

Fear always springs from ignorance.

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.

Act, if you like, but you do it at your peril. Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?

Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.

The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

I could not find the world if I searched ten years. I’ve forgotten the road by which I came.

Not gold but only men can makeA people great and strong;Men who for truth and honors sakeStand fast and suffer long. Brave men who work while others sleep,Who dare while others flyThey build a nations pillars deepAnd lift them to the sky.

Every being is in search of truth, but small fears go on preventing you.

We all really basically have a lot of magic … it’s only those of us that choose to accept it that really understand it.

There is a wisdom of the head, and there is a wisdom of the heart.

Refrain from asking what going to happen tomorrow, and everyday that fortune grants you, count as gain.

We do what we must, and call it by the best names.

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.

He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.