Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

No matter how often you are defeated, you are born to victory.

There is no one who does not exaggerate!

There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.

He is great who is what he is from nature, and who never reminds us of others.

We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.

When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny: they have only shifted it to another shoulder.

You’ve got a big, big problem if you get caught up in what people say. If you’re gonna live for what people say, you might as well lay down and forget it. Because it doesn’t work that way.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relationship is a new word.

For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.

The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency, and qualifies all his qualifications, but who throws himself on your part so heartily, that he can get you out of a scrape.

We must substitute courage for caution.