In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
All diseases run into one, old age.
A great man is always willing to be little.
Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.
Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.
As soon as there is life there is danger.
Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.
Make yourself necessary to somebody.
No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
Doing well is the result of doing good. That's what capitalism is all about.
People that seem so glorious are all show; underneath they are like everyone else.
An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.
The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.
All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.
Our best thoughts come from others.
Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.
Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.
The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.
Always do what you are afraid to do.
We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.
Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.
Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
Some books leave us free and some books make us free.
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.
There is a tendency for things to right themselves.
Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.
A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.
The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.
I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.
Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.
It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'always do what you are afraid to do.'
If a man can... make a better mousetrap, the world will make a beaten path to his door.
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
We are wiser than we know.
One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.
In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.
Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.
The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.
Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.
Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.
