By descending far down into the depths of the soul, and not primarily by a painful acquisition of many manual skills, the artist attains the power of awakening other souls to a given activity.
– History
The true poem is the poet's mind; the true ship is the ship-builder.
– History
Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.
– Self-Reliance
Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it.
– Compensation
We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.
– Compensation
There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word.
– Spiritual Laws
Let him be great and love shall follow him.
– Spiritual Laws
He is a fool, and follows some giddy girl, and not with religious ennobling passion a woman with all that is serene, oracular, and beautiful in her soul.
– Spiritual Laws
The way to speak and write what shall not go out of fashion, is to speak and write sincerely… 'Look in thy heart and write'… He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public.
– Spiritual Laws
What he did he did because he must.
– Spiritual Laws
…your silence answers very loud… for oracles speak.
– Spiritual Laws
I desire not to disgrace the soul.
– Spiritual Laws
Is it not that the soul puts forth friends, as the tree puts forth leaves, and presently, by the germination of new buds, extrudes the old leaf?
– Friendship
Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take part in a conversation of the most sincere and searching sort.
– Friendship
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
– Friendship
But the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited.
– Friendship
Unhappily, almost no man exists who has not in his own person become, to some amount, a stockholder in the sin, and so made himself liable to a share in the expiation.
– Heroism
Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas.
– Heroism
Always do what you are afraid to do.
– Heroism
Man is a stream whose source is hidden.
– The Over-Soul
We are wiser than we know.
– The Over-Soul
Thus there is no sleep, no pause, no preservation, but all things renew, germinate, and spring.
– Circles
No love can be bound by oath or covenant, to secure it against a higher love. No truth so sublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light of new thoughts. People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled, is there any hope for them.
– Circles
The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire, is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory, and to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful. It is by abandonment
– Circles
It is true that the discerning intellect of the world is always greatly in advance of the creative, so that there are many competent judges of the best book, and few writers of the best books.
– Intellect
To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom
– Experience
Since our office is with moments, let us husband them
– Experience
It is a tempest of fancies, and the only ballast I know, is a respect to the present hour
– Experience
Without any shadow of doubt, amidst this vertigo of shows and politics, I settle myself ever the firmer in the creed that we should not postpone and refer and wish, but do broad justice where we are, by whomsoever we deal with, accepting our actual companions and circumstances, however humble or odious as the mystic officials to whom the universe has delegated its whole pleasure for us. If these are mean and malignant, their contentment, which is the last victory of justice, is a more satisfying echo to the heart than the voice of poets and the casual sympathy of admirable persons.
– Experience
Cities give not the human sense room enough.
— Nature
The multitude of false churches accredits the true religion.
— Nature