Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

A man in the wrong may more easily be convinced than one half right.

Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it.

Envy is ignorance.

Genius borrows nobly.

Life is our dictionary.

A man is a god in ruins.

Earth laughs in flowers.

Thoughts rule the world.

All mankind love a lover.

Art is a jealous mistress.

Language is fossil poetry.

Reality is a sliding door.

The surest poison is time.

All mankind loves a lover.

What you are comes to you.

All life is an experiment.

Invention breeds invention.

The first wealth is health.

Skill to do comes of doing.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

Money often costs too much.

Frankness invites frankness.

Children are all foreigners.

In dreams we are true poets.

To be simple is to be great.

Life is a search after power.

We boil at different degrees.

Thought is the seed of action.

A day is a miniature eternity.

Our distrust is very expensive.

It is a luxury to be understood.

Give all to love;Obey thy heart.

Knowledge exists to be imparted.

The house praises the carpenter.

The essence of age is intellect.

Beauty without expression tires.

He is only rich who owns the day.

Whatever limits us, we call Fate.

The telltale body is all tongues.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

Be not the slave of your own past.

Whatever you do, you need courage.

You can not see the mountain near.

Every artist was first an amateur.

The dice of God are always loaded.

Self-command is the main elegance.

Everything is the cause of itself.

To fill the hour—that is happiness.

Fear always springs from ignorance.

Wise men are not wise all the time.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

So far as a man thinks, he is free.

Language is the archive of history.

The world belongs to the energetic.

Character is higher than intellect.

A man's library is a sort of harem.

Self-command is the main discipline.

Music causes us to think eloquently.

The instinct of the people is right.

Language is the archives of history.

The only reward of virtue is virtue.

People say law but they mean wealth.

We judge a man's wisdom by his hope.

Life is a festival only to the wise.

What we call results are beginnings.

Self-trust is the essence of heroism.

Books are for nothing but to inspire.

Men are what their mothers made them.

Pictures must not be too picturesque.

The key to every man is his thoughts.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

A man of no conversation should smoke.

If a man owns land, the land owns him.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

Every man's task is his life preserver.

Man sheds grief as his skin sheds rain.

Fame is proof that people are gullible.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

Fear is an instructor of great sagacity.

Men are respectable only as they respect.

Grow angry slowly—there's plenty of time.

Wherever the truth is injured, defend it.

One man's justice is another's injustice.

It is a happy talent to know how to play.

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Genius is sacrificed to talent every day.

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

Man is a piece of the universe made alive.

Patience and fortitude conquer all things.

The people are to be taken in small doses.

Good manners are made of petty sacrifices.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

Manners are the happy way of doing things.

If you would liberate me, you must be free.

Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.

A true talent delights the possessor first.

What a new face courage puts on everything!

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

A good intention clothes itself with power.

Every noble activity makes room for itself.

Men only see what they are prepared to see.

Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

Nature delights in punishing stupid people.

Art is the path of the creator to his work.

Every calamity is a spur and valuable hint.

Manners are the happy ways of doing things.

A great man is always willing to be little.

We put our love where we have put our labor.

Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.

No facts to me are sacred; none are profane.

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

The eyes indicate the antiquity of the soul.

A good indignation makes an excellent speech.

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.

Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody.

Cities give not the human senses room enough.

The best part of health is a fine disposition.

All great speakers were bad speakers at first.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

The world is his, who has money to go over it.

Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.

If you can not be free, be as free as you can.

In good writing, words become one with things.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended.

A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence.

It is very hard to be simple enough to be good.

A good indignation brings out all one's powers.

As we grow old, . . . the beauty steals inward.

The years teach much which the days never know.

A little fact is worth a whole limbo of dreams.

Genius always finds itself a century too early.

The years teach much which the days never knew.

Science surpasses the old miracles of mythology.

A man's fortunes are the fruit of his character.

What is the hardest task in the world? To think.

Every man believes he has a greater possibility.

Everyone has a vocation. The talent is the call.

Whoso would be a human must be a non-conformist.

Manners make the fortune of the ambitious youth.

Every burned book or house enlightens the world.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

Sincerity is the highest compliment you can pay.

Respect the child. Trespass not on his solitude.

Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

There is a crack in everything that God has made.

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.

That which befits us is cheerfulness and courage.

All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.

What is the hardest task in the world?  To think.

Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual.

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.

We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.

A good intention clothes itself with sudden power.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise.

We cannot forgive another for not being ourselves.

All science is transcendental or else passes away.

Adopt the pace of nature.  Her secret is patience.

The reward of a thing well done is having done it.

Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

I trust a good deal to common fame, as we all must.

A man's action is only a picture-book of his creed.

Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.

In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.

To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching.

Dreams wherein we often see ourselves in masquerade.

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.

Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished.

Every man believes that he has greater possibilities.

The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.

In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.

The solar system has no anxiety about its reputation.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

Here's to the happy man: All the world loves a lover.

The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.

I knew a man scared by the rustle of his own hatband.

Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.

That which we call sin in others is experiment for us.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.

Wit makes its own welcome and levels all distinctions.

Poetry must be as new as foam, and as old as the rock.

The universe does not jest with us, but is in earnest.

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.

I like the sayers of No better than the sayers of yes.

There can be no high civility without a deep morality.

An action is the perfection and publication of thought.

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions.

Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature.

The secret of education lies in respecting the student.

That which we call sin in others, is experiment for us.

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Every man is entitled to be valued by his best moments.

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science.

Time dissipates to ether the shining angularity of fact.

'Tis weak and vicious people who cast the blame on Fate.

The State is our neighbors; our neighbors are the State.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

A man's wife has more power over him than the state has.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations.

A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can.

The affections cannot keep their youth any more than men.

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you.

The question is whether it is the way out, or the way in.

All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.

Every man passes his life in the search after friendship.

It is the wounded oyster that mends its shell with pearl.

The way to mend a bad world is to create the right world.

Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.

If a man's eye is on the Eternal, his intellect will grow.

Nature works on a method of all for each and each for all.

Not in one's goals but in one's transitions is a man great.

Intellect annuls fate.  So far as a man thinks, he is free.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

The finished man of the world must eat of every apple once.

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.

Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

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

When Duty whispers low, Thou must, the youth replies, I can.

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of chance.

Who drinks of Cupid's nectar cup loveth downward, and not up.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Nature is a mutual cloud, which is always and never the same.

The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue.

You are trying to make that child another you; one is enough.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

The best lightning-rod for your protection is your own spine.

The task ahead of us is never as great as the power behind us.

Heroism feels and never reasons and therefore is always right.

Speech is power; speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.

Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life.

Politeness is the ritual of society, as prayers are of church.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

In the vaunted works of Art the master-stroke is Nature's part.

A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it.

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts.

The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself.

Life is not so short but that there is always time for courtesy.

Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow.

The finest poems of the world have been expedients to get bread.

The imbecility of men is always inviting the impudence of power.

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast.

When we have arrived at the question, the answer is already near.

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

The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.

Money often costs too much, and power and pleasure are not cheap.

Nature is no spendthrift, but takes the shortest way to her ends.

Within, I do not find wrinkles and used heart, but unspent youth.

We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

We say the cows laid out Boston.  Well, there are worse surveyors.

The revelation of Thought takes man out of servitude into Freedom.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight.

We are born believing,  A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

Language is the archives of history. ... Language is fossil poetry.

Can anyone remember when times were not hard, and money not scarce?

The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other people.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears apples.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

Religion is as effectually destroyed by bigotry as by indifference.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what some people think.

The good rain, like a bad preacher, does not know when to leave off.

A sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

Imagination is not the talent of some men, but is the health of man.

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land.

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

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

What is a weed?  A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

People do not deserve good writing, they are so pleased with the bad.

Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make yourself hard to any.

The power of a man increases steadily by continuance in one direction.

The music that can deepest reach, and cure all ill, is cordial speech.

If eyes were made for seeing, then Beauty is its own excuse for being.

Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed!

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.

A day for toil, an hour for sport, but for a friend is life too short.

Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.

In failing circumstances no man can be relied on to keep his integrity.

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce.

Men of character are the conscience of the society to which they belong.

Truth, and goodness, and beauty are but different faces of the same all.

Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.

No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.

Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.

The louder they talked of their honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues the better we like him.

Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all people.

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

Cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet — for beauty is his aim.

There is ever a slight suspicion of the burlesque about earnest, good men.

Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.

Men who know the same things are not long the best company for each other.

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

Divine Providence send the chiefest benefits under the mask of calamities.

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.

Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.

Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food and an immense quiet.

Every thought which genius and piety throw into the world alters the world.

In youth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, and go as brave as the zodiac.

Marriage is the perfection which love aimed at, ignorant of what it sought.

Yet a man may love a paradox, without either losing his wit or his honesty.

Wherever we go, whatever we do, self is the sole subject we study and learn.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

A sufficient and sure method of civilization is the influence of good women.

The condition which high friendship demands is the ability to do without it.

It is proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.

A friend is a man with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.

There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep.

Everything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight lines.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

He has seen but half the universe who never has been shown the house of pain.

He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.

I like the silent church before the service begins better than any preaching.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.

He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire.

You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.  Before him I may think aloud.

Moral qualities rule the world, but at short distances the senses are despotic.

One of the benefits of a college education is to show the boy its little avail.

A man must ride alternately on the horses of his private and his public nature.

Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun.

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor.

A dollar is not value, but representative of value, and at last of moral values.

Must we always talk for victory, and never once for truth, for comfort, and joy?

A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.

A man is great who is what he is from nature and who never reminds us of others.

Must we always talk for victory, and never once for truth, for comfort, for joy?

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.

So of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is spent, the more it remains.

In the effort to unfold our thought to a friend we make it clearer to ourselves.

The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him.

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

Use what language you will, you can never say anything to others but what you are.

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.

The less government we have the better-the fewer laws and the less confided power.

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

The efforts which we make to escape from our destiny only serve to lead us into it.

Experience is the only teacher, and we get this lesson indifferently in any school.

The god of Victory is said to be one-handed, but Peace gives victory to both sides.

There is a kind of latent omniscience not only in every man, but in every particle.

No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

I like the silence of a church, before the service begins better than any preaching.

Nature is reckless of the individual. When she has points to carry, she carries them.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol, and an audience is electrified.

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

The less government we have, the better — the fewer laws, and the less confided power.

Bad times have a scientific value.  These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

Do not go where the path may lead: go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

If we shall take the good we find, asking no questions, we shall have heaping measures.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Natures abhors the old and old age seems the only disease; all others run into this one.

He who has put forth his total strength in fit actions has the richest return of wisdom.

If you would know what nobody knows, read what everybody reads, just one year afterward.

People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.

A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world.

In every man there is something wherein I may learn from him, and in that I am his pupil.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

In analyzing history, do not be too profound, for often the causes are quite superficial.

You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.

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

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

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

If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, instead of honey, it will yield us bees.

Go where he will, the wise man is at home, his hearth the earth, — his hall the azure dome.

Though we travel the world over to find beauty, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education.

The charm of the best courages is that they are inventions, inspirations, flashes of genius.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.

The element running through entire nature, which we call fate, is known to us as limitation.

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.  Then all things are at risk.

As we are, so we do; and as we do, so is it done to us; we are the builders of our fortunes.

Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.

Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

The right eloquence needs no bell to call the people together, and no constable to keep them.

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

When a man says to me, 'I have the intensest love of nature', at once I know that he has none.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.

There is a capacity of virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.  Without war, no soldiers; without enemies, no hero.

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.

If the stars should appear just one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore!

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two.

Trust men, and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.

Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm.

People don't seem to realize that their opinions of the world are also a confession of character.

There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination.

Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances....  Strong men believe in cause and effect.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

The first farmer was the first man, and all historic nobility rests on possession and use of land.

It is a lesson which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas, and not in circumstances.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.

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

There is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behavior yield to the energy of the individual.

It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young man, 'Always do what you are afraid to do.'

All men are poets at heart. They serve nature for bread, but her loveliness overcomes them sometimes.

[There's] no truth so sublime but it may be seen to be trivial tomorrow in the light of new thoughts.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.  Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

Our first mistake is the belief that the circumstance gives the joy which we give to the circumstance.

It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person—"Always do what you are afraid to do."

The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.

The highest compact we can make with our fellow is, — 'Let there be truth between us two forevermore.'

If I should go out of church whenever I hear a false sentiment, I could never stay there five minutes.

The most wonderful inspirations die with their subject, if he has no hand to paint them to the senses.

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all people round to his opinions twenty years later.

Artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.

It is the privilege of any human work which is well done to invest the doer with a certain haughtiness.

The babe in arms is a channel through which the energies we call fate, love, and reason visibly stream.

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is a question of success, looks into his work for a reply.

Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other.

If a man will kick a fact out of the window, when he comes back he finds it again in the chimney corner.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.

'Tis a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those of gravity, of chemistry, of botany, and so forth.

Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.

What is the imagination?  Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy; only the precursor of the reason.

The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, to guide people by showing them facts amidst appearances.

We think our civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star.

The artists must be sacrificed to their art.  Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.

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

Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.

A determined man, by his very attitude and the tone of his voice, puts a stop to defeat, and begins to conquer.

I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.

There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something.

A mechanic is driven by his work all day, but it ends at night; it has an end.  But the scholar's work has none.

Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.

Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.

Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.

The martyr cannot be dishonered.  Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.

Each man has his own vocation.  The talent is the call.  There is one direction in which all space is open to him.

The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

How much human life is lost in waiting?" "The philosophy of waiting is sustained by all the oracles of the universe.

Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short, in all management of human affairs.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your heart is true for all men - that is genius.

I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech.

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will by mocked by delusions.

We love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted.

The best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere people.

Do not be too timid & squeamish about your actions.  All life is an experiment.  The more experiments you make the better.

Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

We forget ourselves and our destinies in health, and the chief use of temporary sickness is to remind us of these concerns.

Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love,--now repeated and hardened into usage.

There are two classes of poets — the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love.

I can reason down or deny everything, except this perpetual Belly: feed he must and will, and I cannot make him respectable.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men — that is genius.

It sometimes occurs that memory has a personality of its own and volunteers or refuses its information at its will, not at mine.

A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history.

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.  It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense.

I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven.

Every really able man, if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be.

Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind; and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.

He who has acquired the ability may wait securely the occasion of making it felt and appreciated, and know that it will not loiter.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

The child is sincere, and the man when he is alone, if he be not a writer, but on the entrance of the second person hypocrisy begins.

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

The use of literature is to afford us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a purchase by which we may move it.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet; he has a fine Geneva watch, but cannot tell the hour by the sun.

The true test of a civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops — no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

Great men, great nations have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.

The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops – no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

The universe is represented in every one of its particles. Everything is made of one hidden stuff. The world globes itself in a drop of dew.

Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-puller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring, a south wind, not an east wind.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which they are practicing every day while they live.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion who cannot write well under other circumstances.

Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder.

Thoughts come into our minds by avenues which we never left open, and thoughts go out of our minds through avenues which we never voluntarily opened.

For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends.

And of poetry, the success is not attained when it lulls and satisfies, but when it astonishes and fires us with new endeavors after the unattainable.

The orator must be, to some extent, a poet.  We are such imaginative creatures that nothing so works on the human mind, barbarous or civil, as a trope.

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

Talent for talent's sake is a bauble and a show.  Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.

Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.

No man ever forgot the visitations of that power to his heart and brain, which created all things new; which was the dawn in him of music, poetry, and art.

No one has a prosperity so high or firm, but that two or three words can dishearten it; and there is no calamity which right words will not begin to redress.

As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband, and an ill-provider.

All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You first have an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud, and fruit.

Our faith comes in moments . . . yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences.

There are...books which take rank in our life with parents and lovers and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so revolutionary, so authoritative.

Our strength grows out of our weakness.  The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed.

I like to have a man's knowledge comprehend more than one class of topics, one row of shelves. I like a man who likes to see a fine barn as well as a good tragedy.

A dictionary...is full of suggestions—the raw material of possible poems and histories.  Nothing is wanting but a little shuffling, sorting, ligature, and cartilage.

All persons are puzzles until at last we find in some word or act the key to the man, to the woman; straightway all their past words and actions lie in light before us.

Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free.

The profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart find and publish it.

An eye can threaten like a loaded and leveled gun, or can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance with joy.

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?

Speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon-balls and to-tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.

A virulent, aggressive fool taints the reason of a household.  I have seen a whole family of quiet, sensible people unhinged and beside themselves, the victims of such a rogue.

Character wants room; must not be crowded on by persons, nor be judged from glimpses got in the press of affairs, or on few occasions. It needs perspective, as a great building.

The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes, and silly people.

An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or it can insult like hissing or kicking, or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance with joy.

The thirst for adventure is the vent which Destiny offers; a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new country, speak to the imagination and offer swing and play to the confined powers.

Life is a search after power: and this is an element with which the world is so saturated—there is no chink or crevice in which it is not lodged—that no honest seeking goes unrewarded.

Your manners are always under examination, and by committees little suspected, a police in citizens clothes, — but are awarding or denying you very high prizes when you least think of it.

If a man can build a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

The art of conversation, or the qualifications for a good companion, is a certain self-control, which now holds the subject, now lets it go, with a respect for the emergencies of the moment.

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear.

In eloquence, the great triumphs of the art are when the orator is lifted above himself; when consciously he makes himself the mere tongue of the occasion and the hour, and says what cannot but be said.

The high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man, is to be born with a bias to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness—whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or songs.

The high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man, is to be born to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.

The world looks like a mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty.

Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day will come when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well — he has changed his market cart into a chariot of the sun.

The civilized man has built a coach but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, 'but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun.

No doubt, to a man of sense, travel offers advantages. As many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades, so many times is he a man. A foreign country is a point of comparison, wherefrom to judge his own.

I know nothing which life has to offer so satisfying as the profound good understanding, which can subsist, after much exchange of good offices, between two virtuous men, each of whom is sure of himself, and sure of his friend.

Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.

Courage charms us because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all the things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.

A sympathetic person is placed in the dilemma of a swimmer among drowning men, who all catch at him, and if he give so much as a leg or a finger, they will drown him.  They wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices, but not from their vices.

The charm which Henry T uses for bird and frog and mink, is patience.  They will not come to him, or show him aright, until he becomes a log among logs, sitting still for hours in the same place; then they come around him and to him, and show themselves at home.

I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being on a young soul to which they are totally unfit. Cannot we let people be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make that man another you. One's enough.

It happens to us once or twice in a lifetime to be drunk with some book which probably has some extraordinary relative power to intoxicate us and none other; and having exhausted that cup of enchantment we go groping in libraries all our years afterwards in the hope of being in Paradise again.

Wealth brings with it its own checks and balances. The basis of political economy is non interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue and they will do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands. In a free and just commonwealth, property rushes from the idle and imbecile to the industrious, brave, and persevering.

To laugh often and much;

to win the respect of the intelligent people

and the affection of children;

to earn the appreciation of honest critics

and endure the betrayal of false friends;

to appreciate beauty;

to find the best in others; 

to leave the world a bit better

whether by a healthy child, 
a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition;

to know that one life has breathed easier 

because you lived here.

This is to have succeeded.