Ralph Waldo Emerson

The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.

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

The best efforts of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.

The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relationship is a new word.

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘always do what you are afraid to do.’

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.

No thought, no reflection, no analysis, no cultivation, no intention; let it settle itself.

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.

We bust build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

There is no sincerer love than the love of food.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

In heaven an angel is no one in particular.

Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

Oftentimes, it’s the way we react to change that is the thing that determines the overall experience.

The less you open your heart to others, the more your heart suffers.

Was there ever such an autumn? And yet there was never such a panic and hard times in the commercial world. The merchants and banks are suspending and failing all the country over, but not the sandbanks, solid and warm, and streaked with bloody blackberry vines.You may run upon them as much as you please – even as the crickets do, and find their account in it. They are the stockholders in these banks, and I hear them creaking their content.

At 70 years old, if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, It would be to use the phrase ‘f**k off’ much more frequently.