Ralph Waldo Emerson

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.

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

Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding.

There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.

The memory of a day like today reminds me to hold the ones I love that much tighter, that much longer… Take that much more time to be present and to feel the blessing of another day…

By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little, you gain the great.

It were Happy if we studied Nature more in natural Things; and acted according to Nature; whose rules are few, plain and most reasonable.

Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.

Ice-cream is exquisite – what a pity it isn’t illegal.

We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.

Stay with me,’ he said, ‘until the sun goes out, the seas are parched, and the wind draws its last breath.

Depriving the oppressed of a beacon of hope could lose us the world we have built and thrived in. It could cost our reputation in history as the nation distinct from all others in our achievements, our identity, and our enduring influence on mankind. Our values are central to all three.

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

A bargain is something you can’t use at a price you can’t resist.

Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice.

Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.