Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations.

Every man passes his life in the search after friendship.

The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennui s, vanish, all duties even.

How much of human life is lost in waiting.

Them meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.

Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under fourscore winters.

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

Above all, we must avoid the pitfalls of tribalism. If we are divided among ourselves on tribal lines, we open our doors to foreign intervention and its potentially harmful consequences.

Read your own compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

There are charms made only for distant admiration.

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

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.

So I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it but I couldnt find honest employment.

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.

One gains universal applause who mingles the useful with the agreeable, at once delighting and instructing the reader.

We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing.

Words will not fail when the matter is well considered.