Ralph Waldo Emerson

Courtesy Life be not so short but that there is always time for courtesy.

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power.

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

The true poem is the poet’s mind.

Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.

The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

My chief want in life is someone who shall make me do what I can.

There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven’t started wondering about yet.

The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness and of love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage to irremediable weakness.

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

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

The world is his who has money to go over it.

A woman is a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it?