Ralph Waldo Emerson

I know of no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that of tenacity of purpose.

By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature.

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars.

Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.

The revelation of Thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Be not simply good – be good for something.

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.

He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

The Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa….Leonardo had eye trouble….Art couldn’t explain it….But now we’re safe, since science can explain it. Maybe Milton wrote Paradise Lost because he was blind? And Beethoven wrote the Ninth Symphony because he was deaf…

He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.

God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.

Mountains will go into labour, and a silly little mouse will be born.

In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking his way along, step by step, using every time an old boulder, yet never setting his foot on an old place.

I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.

You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he’d said ‘What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?’ He wouldn’t even have started.

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.

Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends.

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.