Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man was born to be rich, or grow rich by use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature. Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players.

Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

We lie in the lap of immense intelligence.

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.

Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect.

The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.

The reason why men do not obey us is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

The liar’s punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

That which builds is better than that which is built.

If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated, it will cool you; If you are depressed, it will cheer you; If you are excited, it will calm you.

One lesson we learn early, that in spite of seeming difference, men are all of one pattern. We readily assume this with our mates, and are disappointed and angry if we find that we are premature, and that their watches are slower than ours. In fact, the only sin which we never forgive in each other is difference of opinion.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

If you value a man’s regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper – and despise it.

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

Blows are sarcasm’s turned stupid.

What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.

Plain question and plain answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.

Better is the enemy of good.

When you do the wrong thing, knowing it is wrong, you do so because you haven’t developed the habit of effectively controlling or neutralizing strong inner urges that tempt you, or because you have established the wrong habit and don’t know how to eliminate them effectively.