Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Cities force growth, and make men talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial.

The reputations of the nineteenth century will one day be quoted to prove its barbarism.

Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.

There is no one who does not exaggerate. In conversation, men are encumbered with personality, and talk too much. In modern sculpture, picture, and poetry, the beauty is miscellaneous; the artist works here and there, and at all points, adding and adding, instead of unfolding the unit of his thought.

Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary & virtuous function.

We aim above the mark, to hit the mark. Every act hath some falsehood of exaggeration in it.

Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.... these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of love and beauty.

A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends. For every friend whom he loses for truth, he gains a better.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants and to serve them one's self, so as to have somewhat left to give, instead of being always prompt to grab?

The highest compact we can make with our fellow, is, — 'Let there be truth between us two forevermore.'

[Gratitude is] the cheerfulness of wisdom.

As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods.