Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.

The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.

I find that the Americans have no passions, they have appetites.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

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

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

By law of periodical repetition, everything which has happened once must happen again and again – and not capriciously, but at regular periods, and each thing in its own period, not another’s and each obeying its own law.

The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.

We must not inquire too curiously into motives… They are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light.

Tear thyself from delay.

We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

Sexes make no Difference; since in Souls there is none: And they are the Subjects of Friendship.

My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man.

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.

The stars are the apexes of what triangles!

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.

All colors will agree in the dark.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

A private Life is to be preferred; the Honor and Gain of publick Posts, bearing no proportion with the Comfort of it