Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

If man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

We are as much informed of a writer’s genius by what he selects as by what he originates.

Self-trust is the essence of heroism.

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss.

Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

Tis very certain that each man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of men, and we are always learning to read it. A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.

No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it.

On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own, to the world.

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.

The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it.

Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

Your own safety is at stake when your neighbor’s wall is ablaze.

Not even the Devil can call a woman “Slut” if he is not able to make her fall in love.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

Pity is for living, envy is for dead.

You cannot dream yourself into a character you must hammer and forge yourself into one.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.