Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oh man! There is no planet sun or star could hold you, if you but knew what you are.

A man’s style is his mind’s voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices.

At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

The surest poison is time.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.

There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

Stress is caused by being here but wanting to be there.

I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.

I always forgive others. The anger; sadness; frustration; pain, whatever feelings I felt, no matter the hurt; the tears, I always found understanding and reason to forgive them; to not hold onto it; to not resent them. But there is one, who I never seem to be able to give absolution, and that’s myself.

You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say Why not?

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.

Find enough clever things to say, and you’re a Prime Minister; write them down and you’re a Shakespeare.

Eat therefore to live, and do not live to eat.

Real love begins when nothing is expected in return.

If you want the moon, do not hide from the night. If you want a rose, do not hide from the thorns. If you want love, do not hide from yourself.

Better see rightly on a pound a week than squint on a million.

I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology.

He that does good for good’s sake seeks neither paradise nor reward, but he is sure of both in the end.