Ralph Waldo Emerson

To me, however, the question of the times resolved itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live?

Set a hedge here; set oaks there,—trees behind trees; above all, set evergreens, for they will keep a secret all the year round.

There is one mind common to all individual men.

Nature seems to exist for the excellent.

If there be omnipotence in the stroke, there is omnipotence of recoil.

“If I stay,” said Dante, when there was question of going to Rome, “who will go? and if I go, who will stay?”

Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater.

The true artist has the planet for his pedestal; the adventurer, after years of strife, has nothing broader than his own shoes.

The first wealth is health.

Society we must have; but let it be society, and not exchanging news, or eating from the same dish.

The force of character is cumulative.

The more we are drawn, the more we are repelled.

Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

My giant goes with me wherever I go.

No wife, no children had he, and the thinkers of all civilized nations are his posterity, and are tinged with his mind.

If a man own land, the land owns him.

He is the true potentate; for they are not kings who sit on thrones, but they who know how to govern.

There is a crack in everything God has made.

It is as easy to be great as to be small.