Ralph Waldo Emerson

Congratulate yourself if you have done something strange, extravagant and broken the monotony.

There is always room for a man of force and he makes room for many. Society is a troop of thinkers and the best heads among them take the best places.

Fractures well cured make us more strong.

A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and virtue, will purge the eyes to understanding her text.

A man's personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.

The line of beauty is the line of perfect economy.

Tis the old secret of the gods that they come in low disguises.

Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun.

The artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like the bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars.

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.

Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well.

Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now.

Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.

Homeopathy is insignificant as an act of healing, but of great value as criticism on the hygeia or medical practice of the time.

A friend is the hope of the heart.

Self reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God.

Talent for talent's sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.

All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.