Ralph Waldo Emerson

The basis of good manners is self-reliance.

Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.

One lesson we learn early, that in spite of seeming difference, men are all of one pattern. We readily assume this with our mates, and are disappointed and angry if we find that we are premature, and that their watches are slower than ours. In fact, the only sin which we never forgive in each other is difference of opinion.

His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.

The triumphs of peace have been in some proximity to war. Whilst the hand was still familiar with the sword-hilt, whilst the habits of the camp were still visible in the port and complexion of the gentleman, his intellectual power culminated; the compression and tension of these stern conditions is a training for the finest and softest arts, and can rarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn from occupations as hardy as war.

What your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul’s emphasis is always right.

All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

Necessity is the mother of taking chances.

No man can be a pure specialist without being in the strict sense an idiot.

Subdue your passion or it will subdue you.

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relationship is a new word.

Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking.

In this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will.

What is the imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy; only the precursor of the reason.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

The camera can represent flesh so superbly that, if I dared, I would never photograph a figure without asking that figure to take its clothes off.

You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude.