Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity, Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew, The conscious stone to beauty grew."

"Earth proudly wears the Parthenon As the best gem upon her zone."

"The world is upheld by the veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome."

"He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others."

"When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will. His class is extinguished with him. In some other and quite different field the next man will appear."

"Every hero becomes a bore at last."

"It costs a beautiful person no exertion to paint her image on our eyes; yet how splendid is that benefit! It costs no more for a wise soul to convey his quality to other men."

"Great geniuses have the shortest biographies."

"Things added to things, as statistics, civil history, are inventories. Things used as language are inexhaustibly attractive."

"Keep cool: it will be all one a hundred years hence."

"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?"

"Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it."

"What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of philosophy, of religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not settled? What mystery has he not signified his knowledge of? What office, or function, or district of man's work, has he not remembered? What king has he not taught state, as Talma taught Napoleon? What maiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not outloved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not instructed in the rudeness of his behavior?"

"Act, if you like,—but you do it at your peril. Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action. What they have done commits and enforces them to do the same again. The first act, which was to be an experiment, becomes a sacrament. The fiery reformer embodies his aspiration in some rite or covenant, and he and his friends cleave to the form, and lose the aspiration. The Quaker has established Quakerism, the Shaker has established his monastery and his dance; and, although each prates of spirit, there is no spirit, but repetition, which is anti-spiritual."

"In actions of enthusiasm, this drawback appears: but in those lower activities, which have no higher aim than to make us more comfortable and more cowardly, in actions of cunning, actions that steal and lie, actions that divorce the speculative from the practical faculty, and put a ban on reason and sentiment, there is nothing else but drawback and negation."

"The measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The greatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstance."

"How can he [today's writer] be honored, when he does not honor himself; when he loses himself in the crowd; when he is no longer the lawgiver, but the sycophant, ducking to the giddy opinion of a reckless public."

"The thing done avails, and not what is said about it. An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the censures."

"Classics which at home are drowsily read have a strange charm in a country inn, or in the transom of a merchant brig."

"The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue."

"Solvency is maintained by means of the national debt, on the principle, "If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?""

"I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, — mettle and bottom."

"A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence."

"You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity."

"Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it."

"Men are what their mothers made them."

"Whatever limits us we call Fate."

"In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin, — seven or eight ancestors at least, — and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is."

"Nature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the fruit of his character."

"That what we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us."

"All the great speakers were bad speakers at first."

"As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues."

"We may well call it black diamonds. Every basket is power and civilization. For coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself withersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power."

"Wealth begins in a tight roof that keeps the rain and wind out; in a good pump that yields you plenty of sweet water; in two suits of clothes, so to change your dress when you are wet; in dry sticks to burn; in a good double-wick lamp; and three meals; in a horse, or a locomotive, to cross the land; in a boat to cross the sea; in tools to work with; in books to read; and so, in giving, on all sides, by tolls and auxiliaries, the greatest possible extension to our powers, as if it added feet, and hands, and eyes, and blood, length to the day, and knowledge, and good-will. Wealth begins with these articles of necessity."

"The world is his, who has money to go over it."

"Art is a jealous mistress."

"If a man own land, the land owns him."

"Money often costs too much."

"The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do."

"You can never do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."

"I have been quoted as saying captious things about travel; but I mean to do justice. I think, there is a restlessness in our people, which argues want of character. All educated Americans, first or last, go to Europe; — perhaps, because it is their mental home, as the invalid habits of this country might suggest. An eminent teacher of girls said, "the idea of a girl's education, is, whatever qualifies them for going to Europe." Can we never extract this tape-worm of Europe from the brain of our countrymen?"

"Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend."

"I am not much an advocate for travelling, and I observe that men run away to other countries because they are not good in their own, and run back to their own because they pass for nothing in the new places. For the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have no task to keep you at home? I have been quoted as saying captious things about travel; but I mean to do justice. .... He that does not fill a place at home, cannot abroad. He only goes there to hide his insignificance in a larger crowd. You do not think you will find anything there which you have not seen at home? The stuff of all countries is just the same. Do you suppose there is any country where they do not scald milk-pans, and swaddle the infants, and burn the brushwood, and broil the fish? What is true anywhere is true everywhere. And let him go where he will, he can only find so much beauty or worth as he carries."

"The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to his opinion twenty years later."

"The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war."

"We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples."

"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."

"Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances...Strong men believe in cause and effect."

"People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."

"Give all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good fame, Plans, credit, and the muse; Nothing refuse."