"I like to have a person's knowledge..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There is no prosperity, trade, art, city, or great material wealth of any kind, but if you trace it home, you will find it rooted in a thought of some individual man.”

“The merit of those who fill a space in the world's history, who are borne forward, as it were, by the weight of thousands whom they lead, shed a perfume less sweet than do the sacrifices of private virtue.”

“Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. The mind does not create what it perceives, anymore than the eye creates the rose.”

“All empty souls tend to extreme opinion. It is only in those who have built up a rich world of memories and habits of thought that extreme opinions affront the sense of probability. Propositions, for instance, which set all the truth upon one side can only enter rich minds to dislocate and strain, if they can enter at all, and sooner or later the mind expels them by instinct.”

“To learn and from time to time to apply what one has learned - isn't that a pleasure?”

“The millionaire says to a thousand people, 'I read this book and it started me on the road to wealth.' Guess how many go out and get the book? Very few. Isn't that incredible? Why wouldn't everyone get the book?!”

“Here is a hero who did nothing but shake the tree as soon as the fruit was ripe. Does this seem to be too small a thing to you? Then take a good look at the tree he shook.”

“The wise are not learned, the learned are not wise.”

“When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.”