A feeble man can see the farms that are fenced and tilled the houses that are built. The strong man sees the possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates as fast as the sun breeds clouds.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again though it contradicts everything you said today.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradicts every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend may be nature's most magnificent creation.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson