Ralph Waldo Emerson

It happened once that a youth and a maiden beheld each other in a public assembly for the first time

If you shoot at a king you must kill him.

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

We must set up a strong present tense against all rumors of wrath, past and to come.

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.

A hen is only a egg’s way of making another egg.

I never could tell a lie that anybody would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.

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.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop, and impoverish it.

Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.

The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

Intellectual tasting of life will not supersede muscular activity.

Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman – repose in energy.

Your depression is connected to your insolence and refusal to praise.

Pain is less subject than pleasure to careless expression.

Fidelity is the sister of justice.

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.