Let a man learn to look for the permanent in the mutable and fleeting; let him learn to bear the disappearance of things he was wont to reverence; without losing his reverence; let him learn that he is here, not to work, but to be worked upon; and that, though abyss open under abyss, and opinion displace opinion, all are at last contained in the Eternal Cause.
Ralph Waldo EmersonSpoons and skimmers you can be undistinguishably together; but vases and statues require each a pedestal for itself.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul.
Ralph Waldo EmersonWe say that every man is entitled to be valued by his best moment. We measure our friends so. We know, they have intervals of folly, whereof we take no heed, but wait the reappearings of the genius, which are sure and beautiful.
Ralph Waldo Emerson