Ralph Waldo Emerson

The worst of charity is that the lives you are asked to preserve are not worth preserving.

A strenuous soul hates cheap success.

Knowledge comes by eyes always open and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power.

Why should we be cowed by the name of Action?

The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

The man who can make hard things easy is the educator.

You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself.

If all you can do is crawl, start crawling.

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

A verse from the Veda says, ‘What you see, you become.’ In other words, just the experience of perceiving the world makes you what you are. This is a quite literal statement.

In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.

I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious – except he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force.

Pain never really goes away; you just elevate and get used to it by growing stronger.

The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.

I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that you don’t know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten.

Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under fourscore winters.

Switzerland is simply a large, lumpy, solid rock with a thin skin of grass stretched over it.

Our best thoughts come from others.

The world is his who has money to go over it.

Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.

If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life. That is very serious!