Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our people are slow to learn the wisdom of sending character instead of talent to Congress. Again and again they have sent a man of great acuteness, a fine scholar, a fine forensic orator, and some master of the brawls has crunched him up in his hands like a bit of paper.

What you are shouts at me so loudly that I can't hear a word you say.

Astronomy is a cold, desert science, with all its pompous figures,-depends a little too much on the glass-grinder, too little on the mind. 'T is of no use to show us more planets and systems. We know already what matter is, and more or less of it does not signify.

What you do thunders above your head so loudly, I cannot hear the words you speak.

The sciences, even the best,-mathematics and astronomy,-are like sportsmen, who seize whatever prey offers, even without being able to make any use of it.

It is much better to learn the elements of geology, of botany, or ornithology and astronomy by word of mouth from a companion than dully from a book.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.

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

Many a profound genius, I suppose, who fills the world with fame of his exploding renowned errors, is yet everyday posed and baffled by trivial questions at his own supper table.

Strong men greet war, tempest, hard times. They wish, as Pindar said, to tread the floors of hell, with necessities as hard as iron.

If we must accept fate we are not less compelled to affirm liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the power of character.

Every industrious man, in every lawful calling, is a useful man. And one principal reason why men are so often useless is that they neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits.

Here is the world, sound as a nut, perfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never a stitch nor an end, not a mark of haste, or botching, or second thought; but the theory of the world is a thing of shreds and patches.

All my hurts my garden spade can heal.

Man is endogenous, and education is his unfolding. The aid we have from others is mechanical, compared with the discoveries of nature in us. What is thus learned is delightful in the doing, and the effect remains.

The greatest delight the fields and woods minister is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me and I to them.

Do what you know and perception is converted into character.

Nature encourages no looseness; pardons no errors.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.