Ralph Waldo Emerson

Genial manners are good, and power of accommodation to any circumstance, but the high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias to some pursuit, which finds him in employment and happiness, — whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statutes, or songs. I doubt not this was the meaning of Socrates, when he pronounced artists the only truly wise, as being actually, not apparently so.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world.

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

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

A man cannot free himself by any self-denying ordinances, neither by water nor potatoes, nor by violent possibilities, by refusing to swear, refusing to pay taxes, by going to jail, or by taking another man’s crops or squatting on his land. By none of these ways can he free himself; no, nor by paying his debts with money; only by obedience to his own genius.

My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock should find the time in my face.

Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.

To think is to practice brain chemistry.

At the end of the day, life is about being happy being who you are.

God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.

The sun is but a morning star.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

The lofty pine is oftenest shaken by the winds; High towers fall with a heavier crash; And the lightning strikes the highest mountain.

Those who trust us educate us.

PATIENCE YOU MUST HAVE my young padawan.

Murder in the murderer is no such ruinous thought as poets and romancers will have it; it does not unsettle him, or fright him from his ordinary notice of trifles; it is an act quite easy to be contemplated.

The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

Practice makes perfect, and nobody’s perfect, so why practice?