Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mr. Emerson visited Thoreau at the jail, and the meeting between the two philosophers must have been interesting and somewhat dramatic. The account of the meeting was told me by Miss Maria Thoreau Henry Thoreaus auntHenry, why are you here? Waldo, why are you not here?

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?

Every wall is a door.

Half a man’s wisdom goes with his courage.

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

We cannot see things that stare us in the face until the hour comes that the mind is ripened.

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.

Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

One definition of man is an intelligence served by organs.

In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds.

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that i am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible….except by getting off his back.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses.

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.

When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.