Ralph Waldo Emerson

That which we call character is a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is conceived of as a certain undemonstrable force, a familiar or genius, by whose impulses the man is guided, but whose counsels he cannot impart.

The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is – Imbecility; imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and, even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity, custom, and fear.

As soon as there is life there is danger.

When we quarrel, how we wish we had been blameless.

There is no one who does not exaggerate!

I am not much an advocate for traveling, and I observe that men run away to other countries because they are not good in their own, and run back to their own because they pass for nothing in the new places. For the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have no task to keep you at home?

All mankind love a lover.

It doesn’t matter that your dream came true if you spent your whole life sleeping.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world.

Our best history is still poetry.

If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated, it will cool you; If you are depressed, it will cheer you; If you are excited, it will calm you.

When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

Whatever you have spend less.

The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him.

The greatest man in history was the poorest.

Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person.

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows.