Ralph Waldo Emerson

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world.

There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right.

If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era?

The masses have no habit of self reliance or original action.

It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

Well, dinner would have been splendid!

It is a time when one’s spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.

Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbour’s buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.

As Love ought to bring them together, so it is the best Way to keep them well together.

I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.

Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen.

The truest end of life is to know that life never ends.

Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.