Ralph Waldo Emerson

When we quarrel, how we wish we had been blameless.

The eye is easily frightened.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

We are prisoners of ideas.

An empire is an immense egotism.

The key to every man is his thought. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.

Believe that each day that shines on you is your last.

Justice though moving with tardy pace, has seldom failed to overtake the wicked in their flight.

Preaching is the expression of moral sentiments applied to the duties of life.

Haste makes Work which Caution prevents.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world.

How earthy old people become moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven.

Imagination is not a talent of some people but is the health of everyone.