The only sin that we never forgive in each other is a difference in opinion.

Cunning is strength withheld.

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity,―expensive races,―race living at the expense of race.

There is no knowledge that is not power.

Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience...

Envy is ignorance, Imitation is Suicide.

Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us...

When we are young, we spend much time and pains in filling our note-books with all definitions of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, in the hope that, in the course of a few years, we...

Art is the path of the creator to his work.

A friend may be nature’s most magnificent creation.

The sky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population.

The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.

There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.

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

People do not deserve good writing, they are so pleased with bad.

Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

I have no expectation that any man will read history aright who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he...

Why all this deference to Alfred, and Scanderbeg, and Gustavus? Suppose they were virtuous; did they wear out virtue?

The years teach us much, which the days never knew.

Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images, or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have...

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

It is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates all men.

The future belongs to those who prepare for it.

Earth laughs in flowers.

Character – a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means.

Thought makes every thing fit for use.

Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Nor time unmake what poets know

The soul’s emphasis is always right.

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

A little fact is worth a whole limbo of dreams.

The only sin we never forgive each other is difference of opinion.

The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops, but the kind of man that the country turns out.

There is one topic peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy,...

Our expenses are all for conformity.

The highest revelation is that God is in every man

Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed

Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other.

Men who know the same things are not long the best company for each other

It is only when the mind and character slumber that dress can be seen.

The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence

Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman — repose in energy.

All promise outruns performance.

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

“When a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.” – Copy to Clipboard — Ralph Waldo...

Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

All the great speakers were bad speaker at first.

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.