Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

As a man thinketh, so is he, and as a man chooseth, so is he.

The cheapness of man is every day's tragedy.

Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

Not in his goals but in his transitions, man is great.

Men are what their mothers made them.

When it comes to divide an estate, the politest men quarrel.

Self reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God.

The earth laughs in flowers.

The angels are so enamored of the language that is spoken in heaven, that they will not distort their lips with the hissing and unmusical dialects of men, but speak their own, whether there be any who understand it or not.

I now require this of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not that they dazzle me. Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.... it is a cold, lifeless business, when you go to the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's.