Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it cannot be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

Coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power.

The line of beauty is the line of perfect economy.

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

It is admirable to consider how many Millions of People come into, and go out of the World, Ignorant of themselves, and of the World they have lived in.

The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.

Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players.

There is nothing that can be changed more completely than human nature when the job is taken in hand early enough.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

Doing as others told me, I was blind. Coming when others called me, I was lost. Then I left everyone, myself as well. Then I found myself, myself as well.

The drama’s laws, the drama’s patrons give, for we that live to please, must please to live.

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.

What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?

Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.