Ralph Waldo Emerson

The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have it, it requires ten times as much skill to keep it.

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we storm heaven itself in our folly.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

It may be that we shall, by a process of sublime irony, have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.

Nothing external to you has any power over you.

Creativity is a consequence of action, not its motivation. Do what needs to be done and then ask whether it was possible.

Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.

Plenty of times I wanted to haul off when somebody insulted me for the color of my skin, but I had to hold to myself. I knew I was kind of an experiment. The whole thing was bigger than me.

In your Salvation shelter I saw poverty, misery, cold and hunger. You gave them bread and treacle and dreams of heaven. I give from thirty shillings a week to twelve thousand a year. They find their own dreams; but I look after the drainage.

Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet.

Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.

In the end, people will judge you anyway, so don’t live our life impressing other – live your life impressing yourself.

A wise man makes what he learns his own, the other shows he is but a copy or a collection at most.