Ralph Waldo Emerson

Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.

Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit in every work of art.

It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay.

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.

Today is a king in disguise.

He is armed without who is innocent within, be this thy screen, and this thy wall of brass.

Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

To know fulfillment, nourish what is for the belly and not the eye.

True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.

Beauty is the mark God sets on virtue. Every natural action is graceful; every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine.

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.

Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to be quite true.

It’s so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.

In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war.

There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess and there are few errors they have ever avoided.

The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.

Self-trust is the essence of heroism.

He tosses aside his paint-pots and his words a foot and a half long.

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.