Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.

The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.

Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock.

Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it.

Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

How many are the things I can do without!

The place of justice is a hallowed place.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

Nothing is real.

I don’t let my mouth say nothin’ my head can’t stand.

I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable.

Failure is an important part of your growth and developing resilience. Don’t be afraid to fail.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.

A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.

To hazard much to get much has more of avarice than wisdom.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

A patronizing disposition always has its meaner side.

The Public is merely a multiplied “me”.

Can you really explain to a fish what it’s like to walk on land? One day on land is worth a thousand years of talking about it, and one day running a business has exactly the same kind of value.