Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.

You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.

I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being on a young soul to which they are totally unfit. Cannot we let people be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make that man another you. One’s enough.

All mankind love a lover.

It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have it, it requires ten times as much skill to keep it.

A great man stands on God. A small man on a great man.

He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

One of the most attractive things about the flowers is their beautiful reserve.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich, something for nothing.

She was taken by surprise at quite how breathtaking the twinkle in her eyes was. She listened and watched attentively, magnetized. As butterflies danced on her lips, her own stomach felt butterflies.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?

Act, if you like, but you do it at your peril. Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

He that gives good advice builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example builds with both.

Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, that will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered.

A strenuous soul hates cheap success.

All of humanity is living in a dream world, but suffering real consequences.

No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back.