Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

All that I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

The man who can make hard things easy is the educator.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.

Do what you know and perception is converted into character.

Here’s the thing: the world is not going to issue you an engraved invitation to this life.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.

Follow your own passion – not your parents’, not your teachers’- yours.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

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

She is but half a wife that is not, nor is capable of being, a friend.

The only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her.

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

The truest end of life is to know that life never ends.

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

The most beautiful woman is the one who is never divulging, she knows what she is and everything else is worth her.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.