Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are men whose manners have the same essential splendor as the simple and awful sculpture on the friezes of the Parthenon, and the remains of the earliest Greek art.

Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished.

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.

Culture is one thing and varnish is another.

It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.

Language is the archives of history.

If in doubt, don’t. If still in doubt, do what’s right.

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them.

Our spontaneous action is always the best. You cannot, with your best deliberation and heed, come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you.

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

Only the traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better.

The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures of directions for human life; you have much in little; they save time in speaking; and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answer.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.

It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one’s own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care.

Once you truly understand that it is okay to lose or fail, you are free, you have nothing to fear, and only then, can nothing in this world hold you back.

When we quarrel, how we wish we had been blameless.