Ralph Waldo Emerson

One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.

O friend, never strike sail to a fear! Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas.

Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

We are reformers in the spring and summer, but in autumn we stand by the old. Reformers in the morning, and conservers at night.

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

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.

If I shall sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I’m sure that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for.

No man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom perhaps not one appears to deserve our notice or excites our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng, that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten.

After a few months’ acquaintance with European coffee, one’s mind weakens, and his faith with it, and he begins to wonder if the rich beverage of home, with its clotted layer of yellow cream on top of it, is not a mere dream after all, and a thing which never existed.

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.

It’s not whether you get knocked down, its whether you get back up.

The idea of perfection always gives one a chance to talk without knowing facts.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.

Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

Stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio and television and the Internet. To hell with them. They don’t want anything done for the public good. Our incapacity is their livelihood

Fear always springs from ignorance.

The presence of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger, quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in the wholeness of our character.

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.