When God lets loose a great thinker on this planet, then all things are at risk. There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; nor any literary reputation or the so-called eternal names of fame that many not be refused and condemned.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward; in talent from without inward.
Ralph Waldo EmersonEvery man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well. He has changed his market cart into a chariot of the sun.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe university must be retrospective. The gale that gives direction to the vanes on all its towers blows out of antiquity.
Ralph Waldo EmersonI like my boy with his endless sweet soliloquies and iterations and his utter inability to conceive why I should not leave all my nonsense, business, and writing and come to tie up his toy horse, as if there was or could be any end to nature beyond his horse. And he is wiser than we when [he] threatens his whole threat "I will not love you."
Ralph Waldo Emerson