Ralph Waldo Emerson

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.

Our best history is still poetry.

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.

What is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects. What is life but what a man is thinking of all day? This is his fate and his employer. Knowing is the measure of the man. By how much we know, so much we are.

So far as a person thinks; they are free.

In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.

Leave the rest to the gods.

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

If you protect a man from folly, you will soon have a nation of fools.

Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.

Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.

You are braver than you believe. Stronger than you seem. And smarter than you think.

Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.

There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right.

A monarch, when good, is entitled to the consideration which we accord to a pirate who keeps Sunday School between crimes; when bad, he is entitled to none at all.

Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.

A vow is a snare for sin.

The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.