Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.

He who would be a man must therefore be a non-conformist.

It the proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

Men lose their tempers in defending their taste.

Refrain from asking what going to happen tomorrow, and everyday that fortune grants you, count as gain.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life.

These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.

Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

Man is the only animal of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid of.