Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

As men’s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.

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

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

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

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.

In traveling, a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.

There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom.

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.

A sudden bold and unexpected question does many times surprise a man and lay him open.

The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.

Love grows. Lust wastes by Enjoyment, and the Reason is, that one springs from an Union of Souls, and the other from an Union of Sense.

The years teach much what the days never knew.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself, and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.

We do what we must, and call it by the best names.

Always do what you are afraid to do.

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.

If all you can do is crawl, start crawling.

If you have nothing to say, say nothing.