Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.

Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind.

The wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor.

The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-men can do little for him.

That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.

He has the deed half done who has made a beginning.

I am a democrat only on principle, not by instinct – nobody is that. Doubtless some people say they are, but this world is grievously given to lying.

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and coloring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.

Moral of the Work. In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.

I didn’t find my friends; the good Lord gave them to me.

It happened once that a youth and a maiden beheld each other in a public assembly for the first time

There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined.

Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it.

Only trust thyself, and another shall not betray thee.

Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.

For knowledge itself is power.

Plain question and plain answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.

If you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t walk run, then walk, if you can’t walk, then crawl, but by all means keep moving.

For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.