Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and new.

The soul of God is poured into the world through the thoughts of men.

The sanity of society is a balance of a thousand insanities.

Put the argument into a concrete shape, into an image, some hard phrase, round and solid as a ball, which they can see and handle and carry home with them, and the cause is half won.

Don't be a cynic and disconsolate preacher. Don't bewail and moan. Omit the negative propositions. Challenge us with incessant affirmatives

Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance.

A man's wife has more power over him than the state has.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Never self-possessed, or prudent, love is all abandonment.

The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be common, nor the common heroic.

Civilization depends on morality.