Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do that which is assigned to you and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected

An empire is an immense egotism.

I can reason down or deny everything, except this perpetual Belly: feed he must and will, and I cannot make him respectable.

Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world.

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes.

If a better system is thine, impart it; if not, make use of mine.

My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.

Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial.

Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.

A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.

The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement.

No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Imagination is not a talent of some people but is the health of everyone.