Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man passes his life in the search after friendship.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations.

All promise outruns performance.

The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.

Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men’s manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.

Life is a progress, and not a station.

The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.

You cannot dream yourself into a character you must hammer and forge yourself into one.

The laws of each are convertible into the laws of any other.

I could not find the world if I searched ten years. I’ve forgotten the road by which I came.

Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.

I’m not a teacher: only a fellow-traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead – ahead of myself as well as you.

You don’t get respect if you don’t deserve it

No man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom perhaps not one appears to deserve our notice or excites our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng, that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten.

He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike.

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.