Ralph Waldo Emerson

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations.

The glory of friendship is not in the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is in the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him.

We are always getting ready to live but never living.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.

We have reached a point today where labor-saving devices are good only when they do not throw the worker out of his job.

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn’t!

Round numbers are always false.

The best efforts of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large mattertis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

Work is life, you know, and without it, there’s nothing but fear and insecurity.

It always seems impossible until it is done.

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

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

The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.

The sense of an entailed disadvantage – the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite. But in the rarer sort, who presently see their own frustrated claim as one among a myriad, the inexorable sorrow takes the form of fellowship and makes the imagination tender.

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

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.