Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

Every man has his own vocation, talent is the call.

Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world.

The next best thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.

The truest end of life is to know that life never ends.

Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.

Right is right even if everyone is against it and wrong is wrong even if everyone is for it.

The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.

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.

Pain never really goes away; you just elevate and get used to it by growing stronger.

The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.

As to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no matter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the consequence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors; nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep and never to refrain when awake.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.

Philebus was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend, that not these, but wisdom and intelligence and memory, and their kindred, right opinion and true reasoning, are better and more desirable than pleasure

I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.