Ralph Waldo emerson

“A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.”

“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.”

“A great man is always willing to be little.”

“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.”

“An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.”

“And what is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not been discovered.”

“Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.”

“By God, I will not obey this filthy enactment!”  (of the Fugitive Slave Act)

“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.”

“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions.  All life is an experiment.  The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again; you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.”

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

“Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your objective. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

“Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.”

“Every hero becomes a bore at last.”

“Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances.”

“Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.”

“Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.”

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”

“Good writing is a kind of skating which carries off the performer where he would not go.”

“Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.”

“Hitch your wagon to a star.”

“I always seem to suffer from loss of faith on entering cities.”

“I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot.”

“I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never find again. Sure he is that he read it there, but no one else ever read it, nor can he find it again, though he buy the book and ransack every page.”

“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”

“In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire.”

“In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”

“Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.”

“It is a luxury to be understood.”

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”

“Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood.”

“Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.”

“Money often costs too much.”

“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.”

“No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it.”

“Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”

“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”

“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.”

“Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.”

“Self-trust is the essence of heroism.”

“Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: it was somebody's name, or he happened to be there at the right time, or it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”

“Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.”

“Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.”

“Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

“Take egotism out, and you would castrate the benefactors.”

“Tennyson is a beautiful half of a poet.”

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”

“The earth laughs in flowers.”

“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”

“The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.”

“The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

“The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.”

“The secret of the education is respecting the pupil.”

“The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.”

“The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education.”

“The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops but the kind of man that the country turns out.”

“There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide.”

“Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.”

“Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good: 'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.”

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.”

“To believe your own thought, to believe what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men--that is genius.”

“Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.”

“We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.”

“What lies before us and what lies behind us are tiny compared to what lies within us.”

“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.”

“When it is dark enough you can see the stars.”

“Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying.”

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”