Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended.

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.

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

Half a man’s wisdom goes with his courage.

The foundations of a person are not in matter but in spirit.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.

Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.

To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

I think we foreshorten our own viewpoint if we consider any state of mind, or society, or government as final. Growth and change! We can’t get away from them.

The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.

The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character.

The idea of perfection always gives one a chance to talk without knowing facts.

We are apt to love praise, but not deserve it. But if we would deserve it, we must love virtue more than that.

We are not victims of aging, sickness and death. These are part of scenery, not the seer, who is immune to any form of change. This seer is the spirit, the expression of eternal being.

Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you who you’ll turn out to be.

All say, How hard it is that we have to die – a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.