Ralph Waldo Emerson

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

Don’t be a cynic and disconsolate preacher. Don’t bewail and moan. Omit the negative propositions. Challenge us with incessant affirmatives. Don’t waste yourself in rejection, or bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

Wherever there is power there is age.

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right.

Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished.

There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

Why do you treat me as they do, as though I were exactly what I want to be. Why do we treat people that way?

Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients that they know not how to live with the moderns.

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

There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little, and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not keep their suspicions in smother.

The Jews generally give value. They make you pay; but they deliver the goods. In my experience the men who want something for nothing are invariably Christians.

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.

We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.

Happiness is not a state to arrive at, rather, a manner of traveling.

No just cause is futile, even if it’s lost, if it helps make the future better than the past.

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.

Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

Say what you have to say and first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending; sit down.

All styles are good except the tiresome kind.