Stay at home in your mind. Don’t recite other people’s opinions. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. Journals, 1843 ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in your reading have been like the blast of triumph out of Shakespeare, Seneca, Moses, John and Paul. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Public opinion, I am sorry to say, will bear a great deal of nonsense. There is scarcely any absurdity so gross, whether in religion, politics, science or manners, which it will not bear. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

These rabble at Washington … see, against the unanimous expression of the people, how much a little well-directed effrontery can achieve, how much crime the people will bear, and they proceed from step to step… (Journal, June 1846) ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson