Ralph Waldo Emerson

The walking of Man is falling forwards.

Shallow people believe in luck and in circumstances; Strong people believe in cause and effect.

There is this to be said in favor of drinking, that it takes the drunkard first out of society, then out of the world.

Sunday is the core of our civilization, dedicated to thought and reverence.

He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.

Europe extends to the Alleghenies; America lies beyond.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows – it must grow; nothing can prevent it.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend.

Sympathetic people often don’t communicate well, they back reflected images which hide their own depths.

From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.

It is all right to rat, but you can’t re-rat.

To solve a problem or to reach a goal, you don’t need to know all the answers in advance. But you must have a clear idea of the problem or the goal you want to reach.

It were better to be of no church, than to be bitter for any.

What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?

Zeal ever follows an appearance of truth, and the assured are too apt to be warm; but it is their weak side in argument; zeal being better shown against sin than persons, or their mistakes.