Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beauty rests on necessities.

Sincerity is the highest complement you can pay.

The pest of society are the egotist, they are dull and bright, sacred and profane, course and fine. It is a disease that like the flu falls on all constitutions.

There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into power.

Blame is safer than praise.

Of course, money will do after its kind, and will steadily work to unspiritualize and unchurch the people to whom it was bequeathed.

Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.

The education of the will is the object of our existence.

So far as a person thinks; they are free.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

Round numbers are always false.

How can what an Englishman believes be hearsay? It is a contradiction in terms.

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

Dare to think for yourself.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise.

City life is millions of people being lonesome together.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.

My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.

A word once uttered can never be recalled.