Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.Collection: Science
Science does not know its debt to imagination.Collection: Imagination
The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.Collection: Best
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.Collection: Men
No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.Collection: Learning
This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.Collection: Time
Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he.Collection: Positive
Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.Collection: Society
We aim above the mark to hit the mark.Collection: Motivational
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.Collection: God
The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.Collection: Health
Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.Collection: Truth
Good men must not obey the laws too well.Collection: Men
In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.Collection: Art
A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.Collection: Courage
Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.Collection: Wisdom
Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.Collection: Trust
All mankind love a lover.Collection: Love
A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.Collection: Peace
We must be our own before we can be another's.Collection: Brainy
For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.Collection: Peace
A good indignation brings out all one's powers.Collection: Good
The first wealth is health.Collection: Health
God enters by a private door into every individual.Collection: Faith
Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual.Collection: Faith
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.Collection: Wisdom
Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.Collection: Life
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force - that thoughts rule the world.Collection: Great
Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.Collection: Truth
Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the 'Not Me,' that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, 'Nature.'Collection: Art
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.Collection: Friendship
He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.Collection: Life
When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.Collection: Nature
Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.Collection: Time
Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.Collection: Change
The only way to have a friend is to be one.Collection: Friendship
We are wiser than we know.Collection: Wisdom
America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.Collection: Imagination
To be great is to be misunderstood.Collection: Great
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.Collection: Great
Men are what their mothers made them.Collection: Mom
There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.Collection: Mom
Pictures must not be too picturesque.Collection: Art
Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.Collection: Men
Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.Collection: Time
A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.Collection: Friendship
Nature is the incarnation of thought. The world is the mind precipitated.Collection: Nature
I have no hostility to nature, but a child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons.Collection: Nature
The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.Collection: Freedom