583 quotes
The silent organ loudest chants
The master's requiem.
Poems (1847)
Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.
Nature (1836)
Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.
Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments.
The American Scholar (1837)
A good intention clothes itself with sudden power.
The world is his, who has money to go over it.
Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody.
Letters and Social Aims (1876)
'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakenly meant for his ear.
Society and Solitude (1870)
Our theism is the purification of the human mind. Man can paint, or make, or think nothing but man. He believes that the great material elements had their origin from his thought.
Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.
Journals (1822)
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
The poor, short lone fact dies at birth. Memory catches it up into her heaven and bathes it in immortal waters.
The Natural History of Intellect, and Other Papers (1893)
The passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.
No man can have society upon his own terms. If he seeks it, he must serve it too.
Journals (1822)
Nature makes a Brahmin of me presently. The transmigration of souls is no fable.
When a thought of Plato becomes a thought to me, when a truth that fired the soul of St. John, fires mine, time is no more.
These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger.
In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.
Letters and Social Aims (1876)
Our spontaneous action is always the best. You cannot, with your best deliberation and heed, come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you.
Man is the will, and Woman the sentiment. In this ship of humanity, Will is the rudder, and Sentiment the sail: when Woman affects to steer, the rudder is only a masked sail.