Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man’s style is his mind’s voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices.

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘always do what you are afraid to do.’

The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.

Be an opener of doors.

Travel is a fools paradise.

All successful men have agreed in one thing – they were causationists. They believed that things went not by luck, but by law; that there was not a weak or a cracked link in the chain that joins the first and last of things.

Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.

I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied, ‘Verify your quotations.’

Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit in every work of art.

People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.

No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.

We must substitute courage for caution.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

Seek not to be Rich, but Happy. The one lies in Bags, the other in Content: which Wealth can never give.

Society therefore is an ancient as the world.

Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

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