Ralph Waldo Emerson

No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can’t dishearten it.

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.

Act, if you like, but you do it at your peril. Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

Commerce is a game of skill which everyone cannot play and few can play well.

Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.

Sympathetic people often don’t communicate well, they back reflected images which hide their own depths.

It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy – but he who has shown the better temper.

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.

Avoid popularity it has many snares and no real benefit.

I know of no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that of tenacity of purpose.

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

If thou art clean and warm, it is sufficient; for more doth but rob the Poor, and please the Wanton.

He is now rising from affluence to poverty.

To hazard much to get much has more of avarice than wisdom.

Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

Think ahead. Don’t let day-to-day operations drive out planning.

I think there is something, more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren’t enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision.

The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.

When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.