Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not tell me of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong.

If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.

To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.

Wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason.

What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what grandeur of spirit we can. Let us be silent, — so we may hear the whisper of the gods. Let us not interfere. Who set you to cast about what you should say to the select souls, or how to say any thing to such? No matter how ingenious, no matter how graceful and bland. There are innumerable degrees of folly and wisdom, and for you to say aught is to be frivolous. Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait until the necessary and everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves of your lips. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

Poetry implies the whole truth, philosophy expresses only a particle of it.

Glances of true beauty can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness.

Avoid flatterers, for they are thieves in disguise.

While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

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.

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.

In the end, people will judge you anyway, so don’t live our life impressing other – live your life impressing yourself.

We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

Liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.