Ralph Waldo Emerson
459 quotations
Every man is an impossibility until he is born.
Our expenses are all for conformity.
A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.
Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being?
The best efforts of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.
Every thought which genius and piety throw into the world alters the world.
A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.
An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.
Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.
A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.
If a man's eye is on the Eternal, his intellect will grow.
One definition of man is an intelligence served by organs.
We lie in the lap of immense intelligence.
Everything intercepts us from ourselves.
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
If you shoot at a king you must kill him.
Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.
Knowledge is the only elegance.
Knowledge comes by eyes always open and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power.
Language is the archives of history.
Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.
Good men must not obey the laws too well.
The laws of each are convertible into the laws of any other.
The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting.
Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.