Ralph Waldo Emerson

The never-ending task of self improvement.

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.

The greatest genius is the most indebted person.

Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.

The State must follow, and not lead, the character and progress of the citizen.

Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.

I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

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

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts – a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.

Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.

I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never find again. Sure he is that he read it there, but no one else ever read it, nor can he find it again, though he buy the book and ransack every page.

Find enough clever things to say, and you’re a Prime Minister; write them down and you’re a Shakespeare.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied, ‘Verify your quotations.’

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child’s board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.

Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

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