Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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

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.

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘always do what you are afraid to do.’

I pay the schoolmaster, but it is the school boys who educate my son.

If man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.

Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.

Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.

Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice.

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

Some men do as much begrudge others a good name, as they want one themselves: and perhaps that is the reason of it.

It is admirable to consider how many Millions of People come into, and go out of the World, Ignorant of themselves, and of the World they have lived in.

I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder’s moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a priveleged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?

Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.