Ralph Waldo Emerson

All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

Love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.

So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

All professions are conspiracies against the laity.

It is nobler to be good, and it is nobler to teach others to be good – and less trouble!

Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.

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

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last.

This ain’t fun. But you watch me, I’ll get it done.

What you can’t pay back you pay forward.

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

One may make their house a palace of sham, or they can make it a home, a refuge.

They are decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

Twenty to twenty-five! These are the years! Dont be content with things as they are. Dont take No for an answer. Never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was made to be wooed and won by youth. She has lived and thrived only by repeated subjugations.

What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn’t deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society, for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference.