Ralph Waldo Emerson

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic. There is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune in making money. Men talk as if there were some magic about this. He knows that all goes on the old road, pound for pound, cent for cent – for every effect a perfect cause – and that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.

Beauty without expression is boring.

My chief want in life is someone who shall make me do what I can.

I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot.

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

Traveling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places.

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Each of us has the right and the responsibility to asses the road which lie ahead and those over which we have traveled, and if the feature road looms ominous or unpromising, and the road back uninviting-inviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that one as well.

The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one’s clothes.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

The miracles of genius always rest on profound convictions which refuse to be analyzed.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but will afterwards always propagate itself.

Religion is as effectually destroyed by bigotry as by indifference.

The public must and will be served.

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.

As Puppets are to Men, and Babies to Children, so is Man’s Workmanship to God’s: We are the Picture, he the Reality.

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.