Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are as much informed of a writer’s genius by what he selects as by what he originates.

It is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts.

Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

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

Do that which is assigned to you and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.

My reputation grows with every failure.

How can what an Englishman believes be hearsay? It is a contradiction in terms.

If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.

What drives me to be who I am, to do all that I do, is not what words will be engraved for my epitaph. What drives me to be who I am, to do what I do, is not vanity, is not for adulation in the eyes of others. What drives me is my own desire to be better; to be happy. When I am dead and buried, the words above will not bring me back to life, I choose to live out my epitaph, and not just for it to be a collection of words someone has chosen to define me.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

We must substitute courage for caution.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

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

As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.

Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

I know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, or thoughts are affection; and am sensible of certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is no part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you.