Thus inevitably does the universe wear our color, and every object fall successively into the subject itself. The subject exists, the subject enlarges; all things sooner or later fall into place. As I am, so I see; use what language we will, we can never say anything but what we are.
Ralph Waldo EmersonEmancipation is the demand of civilization. That is a principle; everything else is an intrigue.
Ralph Waldo EmersonNo man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews.
Ralph Waldo EmersonIn the moment when you make the least petition to God, though it be but a silent wish that he may approve you, or add one moment to your life,--do you not, in the very act, necessarily exclude all other beings from your thought? In that act, the soul stands alone with God, and Jesus is no more present to your mind than your brother or your child.
Ralph Waldo EmersonEngland, an old and exhausted island, must one day be contented, like other parents, to be strong only in her children.
Ralph Waldo EmersonLet a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board.
Ralph Waldo Emerson