Ralph Waldo Emerson

A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.

No matter how often you are defeated, you are born to victory.

Life is a festival only to the wise.

Men are respectable only as they respect.

If a man sits down to think, he is immediately asked if has a headache.

Our best thoughts come from others.

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

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

We lie in the lap of immense intelligence.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule to never criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.

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

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

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.

If thou art clean and warm, it is sufficient; for more doth but rob the Poor, and please the Wanton.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lift human life above the level of farce and give it some of the grace of tragedy.

Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favorable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad.

The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness.