Ralph Waldo Emerson

The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.

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

There is a tendency for things to right themselves.

It is hard to go beyond your public. If they are satisfied with cheap performance, you will not easily arrive at better. If they know what is good, and require it. you will aspire and burn until you achieve it. But from time to time, in history, men are born a whole age too soon.

The power which resides in man is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and coloring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.

Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.

Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

First and foremost, it’s going to be treat others with respect. Be polite: Manners go a long way. Try to come from a good place. And aside from that, stay focused and do the right thing.

The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfect man.

There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.

We women are always in danger of living too exclusively in the affections; and though our affections are perhaps the best gifts we have, we ought also to have our share of the more independent life — some joy in things for their own sake. It is piteous to see the helplessness of some sweet women when their affections are disappointed — because all their teaching has been, that they can only delight in study of any kind for the sake of a personal love. They have never contemplated an independent delight in ideas as an experience which they could confess without being laughed at. Yet surely women need this defense against passionate affliction even more than men.

Seize the day, put no trust in tomorrow. [Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.Lat.]

Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed.

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.

If thou wouldn’t conquer thy weakness thou must not gratify it.