Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend, Unnerves his strength, invites his end.

Self-trust is the first secret of success.

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.

We dare not trust our wit for making our house pleasant to our friend, so we buy ice cream.

Our distrust is very expensive.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who cast off the common motives of humanity and ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster.

The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust.

We are of different opinions at different hours, but we always may be said to be at heart on the side of truth.

A mind might ponder its thought for an epoch, and not gain so much self-knowledge as the passion of love shall teach in a day.

Christianity taught the capacity, the element, to love the All-perfect without a stingy bargain for personal happiness. It taught that to love Him was happiness;--to love Him in others' virtues.

Love is like a hunter, who cares not for the game when once caught, which he may have pursued with the most intense and breathless eagerness. Love is strongest in pursuit; friendship in possession.

A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and virtue, will purge the eyes to understanding her text.

The remedy for all blunders, the cure of blindness, the cure of crime, is love.

We love force and we care very little how it is exhibited.

What we love that we have, but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love.

There can be no excess to love, none to knowledge, none to beauty.

The person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved, love measure.

The simplest words,--we do not know what they mean except when we love and aspire.

The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtesan.

No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher love.

Talent for talent's sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.

Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.

Why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth, of the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board.

Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.