Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are ashamed of our thoughts and often see them brought forth by others.

We judge of man’s wisdom by his hope.

All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.

Our faith comes in moments… yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences.

The more experiments you make the better.

Live, let live, and help live

Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

The one who prosperity takes too much delight in will be the most shocked by reverses.

I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure.

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Events tend to recur in cycles…

Creativity is a consequence of action, not its motivation. Do what needs to be done and then ask whether it was possible.

Resting at your shore fills me with a peace, as if I’ve always been here. My cells resonating with the element of you, boundaries diffuse as one.

This is the comfort of the godly: the grave cannot hold them, and they live as soon as they die. For death is no more than turning us over from time to eternity.

Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

Strange, that some of us, with quick alternate vision, see beyond our infatuations, and even while we rave on the heights, behold the wide plain where our persistent self pauses and awaits us.

There is a great deal of human nature in people.