Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882 / Boston / United States)

''There is no one who does not exaggerate. In conversation, men are encumbered with personality, and talk too much.''

''Those who have ruled human destinies, like planets, for thousands of years, were not handsome men.''

''The covetousness or the malignity, which saddens me, when I ascribe it to society, is my own. I am environed by my self.''

''Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.''

''No performance is worth loss of geniality. 'Tis a cruel price we pay for certain fancy goods called fine arts and philosophy.''

''In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.''

''Cities force growth and make men talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial. What possesses interest for us is the natural of each, his constitutional excellence. This is forever a surprise, engaging and lovely; we cannot be satiated with knowing it, and about it; and it is this which the conversation with Nature cherishes and guards.''

''It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was drudgery.''

''For the most part, the town has deserved the name it wears. I find our annals marked with a uniform good sense. I find no ridiculous laws, no eavesdropping legislators, no hanging of witches, no whipping of Quakers, no unnatural crimes.''

''I cannot find language of sufficient energy to convey my sense of the sacredness of private integrity. All men, all things, the state, the church, yea the friends of the heart are phantasms and unreal beside the sanctuary of the heart. With so much awe, with so much fear, let it be respected.''