Ralph Waldo Emerson

I cannot forgive a scholar his homeless despondency.

Self-trust is the essence of heroism.

The worst of charity is that the lives you are asked to preserve are not worth preserving.

The only thing grief as taught me is to know how shallow it is.

Our strength grows out of our weakness.

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.

During my life, I have had a few nightmares which happened to me while I was wide awake.

The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

When you know better you do better.

Whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it.

An empire is an immense egotism.

Dare to think for yourself.

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?

People sleep, and when they die they wake.

I find that the Americans have no passions, they have appetites.

Piety practiced in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendor of beneficence.

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