The American Scholar quotes

We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe.

We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds.

In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking.

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst.

Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.