I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action.
Ralph Waldo EmersonMen seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of nature,--the sweet, without the other side,--the bitter.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe "times," "the age" what is that, but a few profound persons and a few active persons who epitomize the times?
Ralph Waldo EmersonSentimentalists ... adopt whatever merit is in good repute, and almost make it hateful with their praise. The warmer their expressions, the colder we feel.... Cure the drunkard, heal the insane, mollify the homicide, civilize the Pawnee, but what lessons can be devised for the debauchee of sentiment?
Ralph Waldo EmersonWhen there is sympathy, there needs but one wise man in a company and all are wise,--so, a blockhead makes a blockhead of his companion. Wonderful power to benumb possesses this brother.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it.
Ralph Waldo EmersonMen are born to write. The gardener saves every slip, and seed, and peach-stone: his vocation is to be a planter of plants. Not less does the writer attend his affair. Whatever he beholds or experiences, comes to him as a model, and sits for its picture. He counts it all nonsense that they say, that some things are undescribable. He believes that all that can be thought can be written, first or last; and he would report the Holy Ghost, or attempt it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson