Ralph Waldo Emerson

The first and last lesson of religion is, "The things that are seen, are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal." It puts an affront upon nature.

It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

We lie in the lap of immense intelligence.

It has been the office of art to educate the perception of beauty. We are immersed in beauty but our eyes have no clear vision.

All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do.... Build, therefore, your own world.

He is a good man who can receive a gift well.

What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.

The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight.

Moderation in all things, especially moderation.

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds... A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.

Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our own spontaneous expression with good humored inflexibility whether the whole cry of voices is on the other side.

Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes.

A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.

The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.

Every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical and literature a quotation.

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

Imagination is a very high sort of seeing, which does not come by study, but by the intellect being where and what it sees, by sharing the path, or circuits of things through forms, and so making them translucid to others.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior...