Ralph Waldo Emerson

Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.

As men’s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.

Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.

The greatest genius is the most indebted person.

Wherever work is done, victory is attained.

Riches are for spending.

Do the thing we fear, and the death of fear is certain.

All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive.

Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Less judgment than wit is more sail than ballast.

We have not lost faith, but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession.

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.

Perfect freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his work and in that work he does what he wants to do.

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.

A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavor to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures.

He has been a doctor a year now and has had two patients, no, three, I think – yes, it was three; I attended their funerals.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.