Ralph Waldo Emerson

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘always do what you are afraid to do.’

The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.

The greatest homage we can pay truth is to use it.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?

Our best thoughts come from others.

It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.

There are those that are void of all mercy, but when it comes the time that they are on their knees, they plead for it. Those that were born with the art of deception, never sincere with their words or actions. But mercy is not theirs to take, only for you to give. Never compromise your standards, your beliefs and become like the ones who you are fighting against, but stay resolute to who you are.

Nothing is more common than mutual dislike, where mutual approbation is particularly expected.

Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.

At the end of my life, with just one breath left, if you come, I’ll sit up and sing.

To be a man’s own fool is bad enough, but the vain man is everybody’s.

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

Love is only one of many passions.

What you do makes a difference. And you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

Who can guess how much industry and providence and affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes?

An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.

Sometimes too much drink is barely enough.

The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character.