Ralph Waldo Emerson

Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.

By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little, you gain the great.

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

Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.

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

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must lay it down and commence living on its hint… What I began by reading I must finish by acting.

So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.

I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any other exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.

Never judge a book by its movie.

An autobiography is not about pictures; it’s about the stories; it’s about honesty and as much truth as you can tell without coming too close to other people’s privacy.

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

Why not blame the libraries? They’re full of violent books.

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

Books are the best of things if well used; if abused, among the worst. They are good for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.

Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it. – Vronksy (Anna Karenina)