Ralph Waldo Emerson
Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.Collection: Age
Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.Collection: Great
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.Collection: Life
Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.Collection: Wisdom
The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.Collection: Wisdom
The earth laughs in flowers.Collection: Nature
We acquire the strength we have overcome.Collection: Strength
Money often costs too much.Collection: Money
No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.Collection: Change
Always do what you are afraid to do.Collection: Fear
The intuition of the moral sentiment is an insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul. These laws execute themselves. They are out of time, out of space, and not subject to circumstance.Collection: Space
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.Collection: Life
It is not length of life, but depth of life.Collection: Life
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.Collection: Intelligence
Genius always finds itself a century too early.Collection: Intelligence
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.Collection: Travel
Speak the truth, and all things alive or brute are vouchers, and the very roots of the grass underground there, do seem to stir and move to bear you witness.Collection: Truth
In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.Collection: Society
All diseases run into one, old age.Collection: Age
Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.Collection: Nature
Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.Collection: Beauty
Our best thoughts come from others.Collection: Best
Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.Collection: Positive
All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.Collection: Trust
A great man is always willing to be little.Collection: Great
Nothing external to you has any power over you.Collection: Power
A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.Collection: Money
The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.Collection: Freedom
Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.Collection: Nature
Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.
The ancestor of every action is a thought.
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
The highest revelation is that God is in every man.
People only see what they are prepared to see.
Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.
The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.
The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.
It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'always do what you are afraid to do.'
What you are comes to you.
Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.
The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.
Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.
We are always getting ready to live but never living.