Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you would serve your brother it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. Be true to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.[What is a sorrow? A feeling whose benefits have not yet been discovered]

Meek young men grow up in libraries.

I covet truth; beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth.

The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.

A man's wife has more power over him than the state has.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man.

Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.

What is a farm but a mute gospel?

All diseases run into one, old age.

As a man thinketh, so is he, and as a man chooseth, so is he.

For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?

I have heard that whoever loves is in no condition old.

Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, but symmetrical men never.

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.

Nature is the incarnation of thought. The world is the mind precipitated.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying.

Nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.

Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.