Ralph Waldo Emerson

Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds.

How much of human life is lost in waiting.

Every man is a consumer and ought to be a producer.

Oh man! There is no planet sun or star could hold you, if you but knew what you are.

Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players.

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

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.

To be in time is to be asleep: to be awake is to be in eternity.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.

The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monotonously.

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

I’ll tell you why yes, because why people lie is, because when people stop lying you know they’ve stopped caring.

This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.

What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what grandeur of spirit we can. Let us be silent, — so we may hear the whisper of the gods. Let us not interfere. Who set you to cast about what you should say to the select souls, or how to say any thing to such? No matter how ingenious, no matter how graceful and bland. There are innumerable degrees of folly and wisdom, and for you to say aught is to be frivolous. Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait until the necessary and everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves of your lips. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

As to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no matter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the consequence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors; nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too.

The master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in affluent multitude from the mass of the nation, and from the mass of the nation only – not from its privileged classes.