Ralph Waldo Emerson

Not gold but only men can makeA people great and strong;Men who for truth and honors sakeStand fast and suffer long. Brave men who work while others sleep,Who dare while others flyThey build a nations pillars deepAnd lift them to the sky.

Of course, money will do after its kind, and will steadily work to unspiritualize and unchurch the people to whom it was bequeathed.

I know of no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that of tenacity of purpose.

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.

We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.

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

It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgment.

Love grows. Lust wastes by Enjoyment, and the Reason is, that one springs from an Union of Souls, and the other from an Union of Sense.

I went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart’s Requiem. I did not rise warmly to it. Then I heard an extract from Parsifal which I disliked very much. If Bach wriggles, Wagner writhes…

He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

It is at our mother’s knee that we acquire our noblest and truest and highest ideals, but there is seldom any money in them.

Better a broken promise than none at all.

Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.

In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war.

We falsely attribute to men a determined character, putting together all their yesterdays and averaging them, we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support, it is worse than a large family, he is the silent poor indeed.

What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?