Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say

The soul’s emphasis is always right.

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.

Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, What it will do with you?

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

We are free to yield to truth.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

Genius always finds itself a century too early.

An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.

Perspective, as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What horrors of damp huts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque through aerial distance! What hymning of cancerous vices may we not languish over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange language and artificial phrase! Yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other painful effects when presented in our personal experience.

It is sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to call it, and you roll in the chips.

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

It is a time when one’s spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.

Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.

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.