Ralph Waldo Emerson

The first farmer was the first man. All historic nobility rests on the possession and use of land.

What a new face courage puts on everything!

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

A great man is always willing to be little.

Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under fourscore winters.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Which is worse? The wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.

Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.

Wherever you are, be there totally.

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.

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

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

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it cannot be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.

A man’s library is a sort of harem.

Men have become the tools of their tools.

Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.

Thus, by every device from the stick to the carrot, the emaciated Austrian donkey is made to pull the Nazi barrow up an ever-steepening hill.