Ralph Waldo Emerson

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.

A sect or party is an incognito devised to save man from the vexation of thinking.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.

For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything.

Sorrow makes us all children again, destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest knows nothing.

Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.

Knowledge is power.

Your dreams may have shattered, but that doesn’t mean they are over. They can still be turned into a mosaic of success.

I went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart’s Requiem. I did not rise warmly to it. Then I heard an extract from Parsifal which I disliked very much. If Bach wriggles, Wagner writhes…

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.

To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.

Those who live to the future must always appear selfish to those who live to the present.

What is read twice is usually remembered more than what is once written.

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.

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