Ralph Waldo Emerson

Truth is the summit of being justice is the application of it to affairs.

When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

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

The people are to be taken in small doses.

I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.

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

We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten.

We want a few mad people now. See where the sane ones have landed us!

Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men’s manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.

The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves.

Today, you can decide to walk in freedom. You can choose to walk differently. You can walk as a free person, enjoying every step.

Plan backwards as well as forward. Set objectives and trace back to see how to achieve them. You may find that no path can get you there. Plan forward to see where your steps will take you, which may not be clear or intuitive.

If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?

The soul of God is poured into the world through the thoughts of men.

If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are … a different game you should play.

We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.

Your mind makes a cruel master, but a generous servant.

The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man’s body.

No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.

In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.