Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Children are all foreigners.

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Give all to love; obey thy heart.

Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.

The less government we have the better.

A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

The people are to be taken in very small doses.

We become what we think about all day long.

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

I hate quotations.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

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

The world belongs to the energetic.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

What you are shouts so loud in my ears I cannot hear what you say.

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

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others with out getting a few drops on yourself.

Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.

There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and squirrel.

What omniscience has music! So absolutely impersonal, yet every sufferer feels his secret sorrow soothed.

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Nothing, at last, is sacred; but the integrity of your own mind.

Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

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

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

The reward for a thing well done is to have done it.

I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well, remembering that she has seen dark times before, indeed with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day.

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

We take care of our health, we lay up money, we make our roof tight and our clothing sufficient, but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting the best property of all -- friends?

There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.

Always do what you are afraid to do.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

We do what we must, and call it by the best names.

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

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.

There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.

Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the ordinary.

When you strike at a king, you must kill him.

To know one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.

Insist on yourself; never imitate... Every great man is unique.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.

If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.

I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the Stern Fact, the Sad Self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air ...

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch of a redeemed social condition; to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Imitation is suicide.

All men are in some degree impressed by the face of the world; some men even to delight. This love of beauty is taste. Others have the same love in such success that, not content with admiring, they seek to embody it in new forms. The creation of beauty is art.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

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

As we grow old ... the beauty steals inward.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

The first wealth is health.

A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.

Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

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.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

So of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is spent, the more it remains.

He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invated by worry, fret and anxiety.

If eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show for any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Before we acquire great power, we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

The glory of friendship is not the outstreched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him.

What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.

Common sense is as rare as genius.

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

What a new face courage puts on everything.

My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock, should find the time in my face.

Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well -- he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experience.

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect.

Ideas must work through the brains and arms of men, or they are no better than dreams.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely...

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he know that every day is Doomsday.

A man makes inferiors his superiors by heat; self-control is the rule.

The faith that stand on authority is not faith.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears apples.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it.

We are students of words; we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing

Every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm.

Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.

If a man knows the law, find out, though he live in a pine shanty, and resort to him. And if a man can pipe or sing, so as to wrap the imprisoned soul in an elysium; or can paint a landscape, and convey into souls and ochres all the enchantments of Spring or Autumn; or can liberate and intoxicate all people who hear him with delicious songs and verses; it is certain that the secret cannot be kept; the first witness tells it to a second, and men go by fives and tens and fifties to his doors.

Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.

Who so would be a man, must be a nonconformist.

You must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.

A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.

The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatest, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.

Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass.

Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.

What a searching preacher of self-command is the varying phenomenon of health.

The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.

We are prisoners of ideas.

The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction.

Sooner of later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind.

Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.

Nature is a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same.

Nature hates calculators.

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol, and an audience is electrified.

To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.

There are two classes of poets - the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love.

The imbecility of men is always inviting the impudence of power.

Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.

Work is victory.

All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

Proverbs are the literature of reason, or the statements of absolute truth, without qualification. Like the sacred books of each nation, they are the sanctuary of its intuitions.

The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.

The next thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.

You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.

Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.

A good intention but fixed and resolute - bent on high and holy ends, we shall find means to them on every side and at every moment; and even obstacles and opposition will but make us "like the fabled specter-ships," which sail the fastest in the very teeth of the wind.

Science does not know its debt to imagination. Goethe did not believe that a great naturalist could exist without this faculty.

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves.

The greatest homage we can pay truth is to use it.

Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence, whether a man be behind it or no.

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply.

Take egotism out and you would castrate the benefactors.

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for many.

He is great who confers the most benefits.

Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.

There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into a power.

The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.

People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.

Self-trust is the essence of heroism

Do what you know and perception is converted into character.

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,Then beauty is its own excuse for beingWhy thou wert there, O rival of the roseI never sought to ask, I never knewBut, in my simple ignorance supposeThe selfsame power that brought me there brought you.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world.

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

All life is an experiment.

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

The years teach much which the days never knew.

All mankind love a lover.

Men are what their mothers made them.

Speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon-balls and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.

He who has a thousand friendsHas not a friend to spare,While he who has one enemyShall meet him everywhere.

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

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could some blunders and absurdities have crept in forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

To laugh often and much to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others to leave the world a little better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies with in us.

Far or forgot to me is nearShadow and sunlight are the sameThe vanished gods to me appearAnd one to me are shame and fame.They reckon ill who leave me outWhen me they fly, I am the wingsI am the doubter and the doubt,And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The wise man in the storm prays God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.

One man's justice is another's injustice one man's beauty another's ugliness one man's wisdom another's folly.

Great men are they who see that the spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.

Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory.

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

Four snakes gliding up and down a hollow for no purpose that I could see -- not to eat, not for love, but only gliding.

To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world sparkles with light.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce

This world we live in is but thickened light.

Life is eating us up. We shall be fables presently. Keep cool it will be all one a hundred years hence.

To fill the hour-that is happiness.

Skill to do comes of doing.

A man is related to all nature.

Only those books come down which deserve to last . All the gilt edges, vellum and morocco, all the presentation copies to all the libraries will not preserve a book in circulation beyond its intrinsic date.

I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow.

Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind.

Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such who are in the institution wish to get out and such as are out wish to get in.

It seems to me that perfection of means and confusion of goals seems to characterize our age.

There are always those who think they know what is your responsibility better than you do.

Money often costs too much.

Never read a book that is not a year old.

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

A chief event in life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

Every man is a divinity in disguise, a God playing the fool.

Life is a festival only to the wise.

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

The angels are so enamoured of the language that is spoken in heaven, that they will not distort their lips with the hissing and unmusical dialects of men, but speak their own, whether there be any who understand it or not.

The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.

Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

Be and not seem.

Character is what can do without success.

Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well. He has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.

What is the hardest thing in the world To think.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

The reliance on property is...the want of self-reliance. Men measure the esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property...(Essays)

What I must do is all that concerns me. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt but so are lies.

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.

Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions the surest poison is time.

They say the cows laid out Boston. Well, there are worse surveyors.

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.

The truth, the hope of any time, must always be sought in minorities.

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Thought is the blossom language the bud action the fruit behind it.

In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.

Life is a progress, and not a station.

Real friendship is shown in times of trouble prosperity is full of friends.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments yoiu make the better.

A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely . . . but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every attitude . . .

The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.

What greater pain could mortals have than this To see their children dead before their eyes

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

Each man has his own vocation his talent is his call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him.

The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed there is no winter and no night all tragedies, all ennuis, vanish,-all duties even.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.

What is a weed A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam that flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his own thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts they come back to us with a sort of alienated majesty.

Thought is the seed of action.

A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.

There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.

All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of you first.

When it is darkest, men see the stars.

Every burned book or house enlightens the world every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.

The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point.

We know better than we do. We do not yet possess ourselves.

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

They can conquer who believe they can. He has not learned the first lesson in life who does not every day surmount a fear.

If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution when the old and the new stand side by side...when the glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era This time...is a very good one...

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

Truth is the summit of being justice is the application of it to affairs.

Better to be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.

A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can.

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

Love and you shall be loved.

No facts are to me sacred none are profane I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no Past at my back.

It is commonly observed that a sudden wealth, like a prize drawn in a lottery or a large bequest to a poor family, does not permanently enrich. They have served no apprenticeship to wealth, and with the rapid wealth come rapid claims which they do not know how to deny, and the treasure is quickly dissipated.

The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.

What we call results are beginnings.

Knowledge exists to be imparted.

Insist on yourself never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession... Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching.

One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.

The things taught in colleges and schools are not an education, but the means of education.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears beauty.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul unbelief, in denying them.

Love is the essence of God.

A good intention clothes itself with power.

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.

I awoke with devout thanksgiving for my friends.

The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten.

It is very hard to be simple enough to be good.

In England every man you meet is some man's son in America, he may be some man's father.

Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.

Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.

Spiritual force is stronger than material force thoughts rule the world.

The reason why all men honor love is because it looks up, and not down aspires and not despairs.

I am sure of this, that by going much alone a man will get more of a noble courage in thought and word than from all the wisdom that is in books.

I like to have a man's knowledge comprehend more than one class of topics, one row of shelves. I like a man who likes to see a fine barn as well as a good tragedy.

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

It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.

The education of the will is the object of our existence.

Be careful what you set your heart on, for it will surely be yours.

Fame is proof that people are gullible.

All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive.

We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.

In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and identities in all the religions of humanity.

The thirst for adventure is the vent which Destiny offers a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new country, speak to the imagination and offer swing and play to the confined powers.

Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

The Religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.

Heaven always bears some proportion to earth. The god of the cannibal will be a cannibal, of the crusades a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.

Universities are of course hostile to geniuses, which, seeing and using ways of their own, discredit the routine as churches and monasteries persecute youthful saints.

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end, requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs.

If you can not find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it Dogen Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul unbelief, denying them.

Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.

If man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

A weed is just a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

The only reward of virtue is virtue the only way to have a friend is to be one.

What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour.

In the woods is perpetual youth.

So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the path of each man's genius contracts itself to a very few hours.

Adopt the pace of nature.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men-that is genius.

I used to always think that I'd look back on us crying and laugh, but, I never thought I'd look back on us laughing and cry.

He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air

Every sweet has its sour every evil its good.

Insist on yourself never imitate... Every great man is unique.

Give all to love obey thy heart.

Whoever is open, loyal, true of humane and affable demeanour honourable himself, and in his judgement of others faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.

Wit makes its own welcome and levels all distinctions.

Trust men and they will be true to you treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.

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

As we grow oldthe beauty steals inward.

A man builds a fine house and now he has a master, and a task for life he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

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