Ralph Waldo Emerson

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol and an audience is electrified.

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

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.

Travel is a fools paradise.

The glory of friendship is not in the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is in the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him.

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

I heartily accept the motto,That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

Tomorrow is an old deceiver, and his cheat never grows stale.

Writers are the engineers of human souls.

A toddling little girl is a center of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

Whatever you have spend less.

Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.

Beware what you set your heart upon. For it shall surely be yours.

The pest of society are the egotist, they are dull and bright, sacred and profane, course and fine. It is a disease that like the flu falls on all constitutions.

Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life. That is very serious!

Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.