Ralph Waldo Emerson

The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.

That which we call character is a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is conceived of as a certain undemonstrable force, a familiar or genius, by whose impulses the man is guided, but whose counsels he cannot impart.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

Culture is one thing and varnish is another.

Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor.

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.

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.

Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being?

People only see what they are prepared to see.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

Life is a festival only to the wise.

The envious man grows lean at the success of his neighbor.

What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?

Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows.

A heart well prepared for adversity in bad times hopes, and in good times fears for a change in fortune.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.

Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.

Watch what you say, and whatever you say, practice it.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again – and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.