Ralph Waldo Emerson

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

The true poem is the poet’s mind.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

Men over forty are no judges of a book written in a new spirit.

If a man will kick a fact out of the window, when he comes back he finds it again in the chimney corner.

Things do not change; we change.

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

God screens us evermore from premature ideas.

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

Rest in reason; move in passion.

Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.

Being is the great explainer.

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him.

Sense never fails to give them that have it, Words enough to make them understood. It too often happens in some conversations, as in Apothecary Shops, that those Pots that are Empty, or have Things of small Value in them, are as gaudily Dress’d as those that are full of precious Drugs. They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.

The foolish are like ripples on water, For whatsoever they do is quickly effaced; But the righteous are like carvings upon stone, For their smallest act is durable.