Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these preachers of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

We must be our own, before we can be another's.

Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today. Let us treat men and women well; treat them as if they were real; perhaps they are.

Every roof is agreeable to the eye, until it is lifted; then we find tragedy and moaning women, and hard-eyed husbands.

A home kept to the end of display is impossible to all but a few women, and their success is dearly bought.

It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay.

It is alike your interest and mine and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.... the poet brings his poem... the farmer, corn... the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it restores society in so far to its primary basis, when a man's biography is conveyed in his gift... But 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.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.

When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work , but the solidest thing we know.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.