583 quotes
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
That what we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.
Do not yet see, that, if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.
The American Scholar (1837)
Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.
A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.
Society and Solitude (1870)
Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone-quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.
Letters and Social Aims (1876)
For if in any manner we can stimulate this instinct, new passages are opened for us into nature; the mind flows into and through things hardest and highest, and the metamorphosis is possible.
Whosoever hereafter shall name my name, shall not record a malefactor, but a benefactor in the earth.
The Conservative (1841)
Religion … is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.
Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.
Letters and Social Aims (1876)
It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)
Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist ... must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.
The measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The greatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstance.
Representative Men (1850)
Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master at some point, and in that, I learn of him.
Letters and Social Aims (1876)
Vivacity, leadership, must be had, and we are not allowed to be nice in choosing. We must fetch the pump with dirty water, if clean cannot be had.
The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.
The Conservative (1841)
The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, correspondent to my flowing unto him.
Nor count compartments of the floors,
But mount to paradise
By the stairway of surprise.