Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply.

What is the imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy; only the precursor of the reason.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book.

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.

Be a lamp, a lifeboat, a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.

A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.

Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time, of that time which never can return.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to prepare for the long haul, the rise and fall, and let neither define your sense of self.

In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.

Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.

No comment is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.

We have all seen with a sense of nausea the abject, squalid, shameless avowal made in the Oxford Union. We are told that we ought not to treat it seriously. The Times talked of the childrens hour. I disagree. It is a very disquieting and disgusting symptom. One can almost feel the curl of contempt upon the lips of the manhood of Germany, Italy, and France when they read the message sent out by Oxford University in the name of Young England. Let them be assured that it is not the last word. But before they blame, as blame they should, these callow ill-tutored youths, they must be sure that they have not been set a bad example by people much older and much higher up.

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.

Patience – the gift of being able to see past the emotion.

The greatest gift is the ability to forget – to forget the bad things and focus on the good.

All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.