Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

Nothing external to you has any power over you.

There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says, Anywhere but here.

The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.

Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper.

Every burned book enlightens the world.

We need much less than we think we need.

Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes, than a public library.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature – if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you – know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world – and never will.

Softness has such a power to it. When you choose to soften into something, it relaxes, opens, tension releases. Stuck energy flows like blood coursing through veins, bringing much needed oxygen. Life force and warmth enters, connection is rekindled. Find the trust you need to allow softness in; it really is healing.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.

Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world.

We run to win, not just to be in the race.

When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else… you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.