Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Outside, among your fellows, among strangers, you must preserve appearances, 100 things you cannot do; but inside, the terrible freedom!

If I cannot brag of knowing something, then I brag of not knowing it, at any rate, brag.

Every promise of the soul has innumerable fulfillments; each of its joys ripens into a new want.

A man in debt is so far a slave.

If a man own land, the land owns him.

I can find my biography in every fable that I read.

Shall we judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely.

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast.

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.

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that 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 an end requires ... courage.

Obedience alone gives the right to command.