Ralph Waldo Emerson

The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction.

Stay at home in your mind. Don’t recite other people’s opinions. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Do what we can, summer will have its flies.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

Republics abound in young civilians who believe that the laws make the city, that grave modifications of the policy and modes of living and employments of the population, that commerce, education and religion may be voted in or out; and that any measure, though it were absurd, may be imposed on a people if only you can get sufficient voices to make it a law. But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow and not lead the character and progress of the citizen; that the form of government which prevails is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it. The law is only a memorandum.

The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear.

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

I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that i am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible….except by getting off his back.

Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

I have not a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming vices.

Riches are for spending.

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.

I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.

Tis a superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the same chemical atoms.

Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.

Though I can make my extravaganzas appear credible, I cannot make the truth appear so.

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.

Be confident, not certain