Ralph Waldo Emerson

Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

Trust instinct to the end, even though you can give no reason.

Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.

One of the benefits of a college education is to show the boy its little avail.

I cannot forgive a scholar his homeless despondency.

There was the cell where Fr. Eulalio, a thriving lunatic of eighty-six who was castigating himself for unchristian pride at having all the vowels in his name, and greatly revered for his continuous weeping, went blind in an ecstasy of such howling proportions that his canonization was assured.

The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professors of books; and I think no chair is so much needed.

If you are in a poker game and after 20 minutes you don’t know who the patsy is, then you’re the patsy.

It always seems impossible until its done.

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.

In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.

When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else… you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.

Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.

At 70 years old, if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, It would be to use the phrase ‘f**k off’ much more frequently.

To be mature you have to realize what you value most… Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one’s own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.

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

I do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow because even today I still arrive.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

Understanding is a two-way street.

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself.