Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrate to some stroke of the imagination.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under fourscore winters.

All the great ages have been ages of belief.

Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen.

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Depriving the oppressed of a beacon of hope could lose us the world we have built and thrived in. It could cost our reputation in history as the nation distinct from all others in our achievements, our identity, and our enduring influence on mankind. Our values are central to all three.

It is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness – calling their denial knowledge.

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually; but that would give me pain, as it would counteract my natural inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the inertia and give elasticity to the muscles. We can heat the body, we can cool it; we can give it tension or relaxation; and surely it is possible to bring it into a state in which rising from bed will not be a pain.

A toddling little girl is a center of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.

The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.

Friendships begin with liking or gratitude roots that can be pulled up.

The connection between us runs so strong and deep. It’s like a steel cable stretching across the ocean bed, so many fathoms below, that even the most skilled and courageous of deep sea divers cannot reach it to cut it. It remains strong, silent, invisible, invincible.

I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether.

Pale death with an impartial foot knocks at the hovels of the poor and the palaces of king.

Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations.