Ralph Waldo Emerson

All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.

I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable – any real insight or broad human sentiment.

Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that, unsuspected, ripens with the flower of the pleasure that concealed it.

People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.

If a man owns land, the land owns him.

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

A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavor to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures.

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

Hate has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits, which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.

If you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t walk run, then walk, if you can’t walk, then crawl, but by all means keep moving.

Sweet and glorious it is to die for our country.

What is peculiar in the life of a man consists not in his obedience, but his opposition, to his instincts. In one direction or another he strives to live a supernatural life.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be.

The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures.

There is nothing to fear except fear it’s self.

To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.