Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

The only sin that we never forgive in each other is a difference in opinion.

Artists must be sacrificed to their art.

In sculpture did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece? Or say of the Laocoon how it might be made different? A masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant or a crystal.

Our best history is still poetry.

A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the notion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary but every thing hath affinities infinite.

We bust build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again. The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.

I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.

We lie in the lap of immense intelligence.

Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.

In all evils which admits a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes the time and attention in complaints which, if properly applied, might remove the cause.

The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure.

As the Spanish proverb says, He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you.

Why should we be cowed by the name of Action?

I could have become a soldier if I had waited; I knew more about retreating than the man who invented retreating.

The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.

Riches are for spending.