Ralph Waldo Emerson

We live by our imagination, our admirations, and our sentiments.

Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is of infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses the sun and moon.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity the farthest sundered nations and generations consent to give completeness and roundness to an ancient fable, of which they indistinctly appreciate the beauty or the truth. By a faint and dream-like effort, though it be only by the vote of a scientific body, the dullest posterity slowly add some trait to the mythus. As when astronomers call the lately discovered planet Neptune; or the asteroid Astr.

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.

Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.

The traveler that resolutely follows a rough and winding path will sooner reach the end of his journey than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hour of daylight in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages.

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

Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.

Not to be provok’d is best: But if mov’d, never correct till the Fume is spent; For every Stroke our Fury strikes, is sure to hit our selves at last.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

If thou art clean and warm, it is sufficient; for more doth but rob the Poor, and please the Wanton.

Nothing does reason more right, than the coolness of those that offer it: For Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders, than from the arguments of its opposers.

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.