Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says, Anywhere but here.

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.

Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended.

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.

But you must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know, that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.

God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.

He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise.

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

As long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.

Experience is in the fingers and head. The heart is inexperienced.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

There is no daily chore so trivial that it cannot be made important by skipping it two days running.

The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.

Always do what you are afraid to do.

A man’s house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential – there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster.