Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.

The true poem is the poet’s mind.

We are reformers in the spring and summer, but in autumn we stand by the old. Reformers in the morning, and conservers at night.

Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well.

Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.

The education of the will is the object of our existence.

The amount of people in this world who are here to do something great far outweighs the rest.

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

It always seems impossible until it is done.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Then I realized that secrecy is actually to the detriment of my own peace of mind and self, and that I could still sustain my belief in privacy and be authentic and transparent at the same time. It was a pretty revelatory moment, and there’s been a liberating force that’s come from it.

As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.

Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others… This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.

People do not deserve to have good writings; they are so pleased with the bad.

I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.

A healthy body is a guest chamber for the soul: a sick body is a prison.

Of all the anti-social vested interests the worst is the vested interest in ill-health.

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

The drama’s laws, the drama’s patrons give, for we that live to please, must please to live.

The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.