Ralph Waldo Emerson

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

Choose people who lift you up.

Liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery.

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.

Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

Friendship . . . is an Union of Spirits, a Marriage of Hearts, and the Bond thereof Vertue.

All that appears is devoid of independent existence, just like a magical apparition or a dream.

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

Ahh, that mountain of self-discovery. Every time you have reached the summit, the clouds clear and you see there is still a ways to go. Don’t look up with thoughts of despair; thinking how much further do I have to go?! Take a moment and look back to see how far you have come. Don’t lose sight of your accomplishments, and focus on the continued commitment to self-discovery and development.

Man was born to be rich, or grow rich by use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature. Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players.

I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher.

People sleep, and when they die they wake.

If I cannot brag of knowing something, then I brag of not knowing it; at any rate, brag.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them.