Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.

We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.

Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

To fill the hour – that is happiness.

Life is a progress, and not a station.

The first farmer was the first man. All historic nobility rests on the possession and use of land.

Kindness, love, strength and determination personified!! Madiba reminds me that everything is possible!

Above all, we must avoid the pitfalls of tribalism. If we are divided among ourselves on tribal lines, we open our doors to foreign intervention and its potentially harmful consequences.

If I cannot brag of knowing something, then I brag of not knowing it; at any rate, brag.

We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.

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

You have set up in New York Harbor a monstrous idol which you call Liberty. The only thing that remains to complete that monument is to put on its pedestal the inscription written by Dante on the gate of hell: All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.

It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.

If the Almighty were to rebuild the world and asked me for advice, I would have English Channels round every country. And the atmosphere would be such that anything which attempted to fly would be set on fire.

When the righteous man truth away from his righteousness that he hath committed and doeth that which is neither quite lawful nor quite right, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost in holiness.

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

Gratitude is a debt which usually goes on accumulating like blackmail; the more you pay, the more is exacted. In time, you are made to realize that the kindness done you is become a curse and you wish it had not happened.

Duties are not performed for duty’s sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty -the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.