Ralph Waldo Emerson

So far as a person thinks; they are free.

We have more than we use.

Health is the condition of wisdom, and the sign is cheerfulness – an open and noble temper.

I know of no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that of tenacity of purpose.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

The angels are so enamoured of the language that is spoken in heaven, that they will not distort their lips with the hissing and unmusical dialects of men, but speak their own, whether there be any who understand it or not.

In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.

Don’t do or say things you would not like to see on the front page of The Washington Post.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

There is a tendency for things to right themselves.

Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it….

No man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom perhaps not one appears to deserve our notice or excites our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng, that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten.

The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him.

You. Not wanting me. Was the beginning of me wanting myself. Thank you.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

The future is purchased by the present.

Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity, and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness, and ugliness.

I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.

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

Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.