Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it... Beware of me, it says, but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.

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.

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

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.

The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Thought is the seed of action.

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.

To fill the hour-that is happiness.

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

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

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.

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

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.

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

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