Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some thoughts always find us young, and keep us so. Such a thought is the love of the universal and eternal beauty.

Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.

No matter how often you are defeated, you are born to victory.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.

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.

Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

The revelation of Thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

Passion is the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

A man’s library is a sort of harem.

In the scenery of spring, nothing is better, nothing worse; the flowering branches are; some long, some short.

Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years.

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

No matter how often you are defeated, you are born to victory.

Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be.

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.