Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.

Our strength grows out of our weakness.

No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can’t dishearten it.

Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.

There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.

Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

The Pause; that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however so felicitous, could accomplish it.

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

Philebus was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend, that not these, but wisdom and intelligence and memory, and their kindred, right opinion and true reasoning, are better and more desirable than pleasure

Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed.

People who can’t be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.

Strivers achieve what dreamers believe.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

It is nobler to be good, and it is nobler to teach others to be good – and less trouble!

I do not like work even when someone else does it.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

Time is but the stream I go fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. It’s thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich, something for nothing.

The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors.

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.

When the desire ain’t on me I don’t need help. When it is on me I don’t want any. See? Like the old fellah that never mended his roof. Said on a wet day he couldn’t do it and on a dry day it was as good as anybody’s.