Ralph Waldo Emerson

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

Fear always springs from ignorance.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

The dice of God are always loaded.

Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself; nothing, but the triumph of principles.

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right.

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.

Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

The education of the will is the object of our existence.

How can you dare teach a man to read until you’ve taught him everything else first?

As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.

Today is a king in disguise.

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

How we glow over these novels of passion, when the story is told with any spark of truth and nature! And what fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between two parties? Perhaps we never saw them before and never shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance or betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them and take the warmest interest in the development of the romance. All mankind love a lover.

Water is the only drink for a wise man.