Ralph Waldo Emerson

Perhaps love is only the highest symbol of friendship, as all other things seem symbols of love.

The constructive intellect [genius] produces thoughts, sentences, poems, plans, designs, systems. It is the generation of the mind, the marriage of thought with nature.

Artists must be sacrificed to their art.

The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.

All the great ages have been ages of belief.

Concentration is the secret of srength.

We expect a great man to be a good reader.

Let us not forget the genial miraculous force we have known to proceed from a book.

Wouldst thou shut up the avenues of ill, Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.

Wherever work is done, victory is attained.

The whole course of things goes to teach us faith. We need only obey. There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word. . . . Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which flows into you as life, place yourself in the full center of that flood, then you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment.

It the proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.

The House_x000D_ _x000D_ ...She lays her beams in music,_x000D_ In music everyone,_x000D_ To the cadence of the whirling world_x000D_ Which dances around the sun-_x000D_ That so they shall not be displaced_x000D_ By lapses or by wars,_x000D_ But for the love of happy souls_x000D_ Outlive the newest stars.

There is no prosperity, trade, art, city, or great material wealth of any kind, but if you trace it home, you will find it rooted in a thought of some individual man.

Our expenses are all for conformity.

The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains, appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships.

Every man is eloquent once in his life.

Most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means.

For flowers that bloom about our feet; For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet; For song of bird, and hum of bee; For all things fair we hear or see, Father in heaven, we thank Thee!

They who talk much of destiny, their birth-star, etc., are in a lower dangerous plane, and invite the evils they fear.

Society is infested by persons who, seeing that the sentiments please, counterfeit the expression of them. These we call sentimentalists - talkers who mistake the description for the thing, saying for having.