Ralph Waldo Emerson

Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

Why should we be cowed by the name of Action?

The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

A man is related to all nature.

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

Beware what you set your heart upon. For it shall surely be yours.

Things do not change; we change.

Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.

There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made.

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

The lofty pine is oftenest shaken by the winds; High towers fall with a heavier crash; And the lightning strikes the highest mountain.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

The trouble with you Chicago people is that you think you are the best people down here, whereas you are merely the most numerous.

Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite; and shows besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future to the present moment.

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

But the lightning which explodes and fashions planets, maker of planets and suns, is in him. On one side elemental order, sandstone and granite, rock-ledges, peat-bog, forest, sea and shore; and on the other part, thought, the spirit which composes and decomposes nature.

To be a citizen in a democracy, a human being must be given a healthy start.