Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are ashamed of our thoughts and often see them brought forth by others.

The secret in education lies in respecting the student.

The hues of the opal, the light of the diamond, are not to be seen if the eye is too near.

It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves.

Life too near paralyses art.

Dear to us are those who love us… but dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life; they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit, and urge us to new and unattempted performances.

Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least.

It takes two to speak truth – one to speak, and another to hear.

How great, my friends, is the virtue of living upon a little!

Why should we be cowed by the name of Action?

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

Any experience of reality is indescribable!

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

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

Are you using your pain as an excuse or as a source of strength?

The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune.

Sincerity is the highest complement you can pay.

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

The joy in life is to be used for a purpose. I want to be used up when I die.