Ralph Waldo Emerson

Language is the archives of history.

These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger.

Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished.

America is another name for opportunity.

It is a happy talent to know how to play.

Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

Once we recognize that all things are impermanent, we have no problem enjoying them.

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

I teach that all men are mad.

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting – a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.

Every man passes his life in the search after friendship.

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.

If you live for people’s acceptance, you’ll die from their rejections.

To be a citizen in a democracy, a human being must be given a healthy start.