Ralph Waldo Emerson

He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.

Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect.

Fame is proof that the people are gullible.

Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.

It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other; given the upper, to find the under side.

A friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us. The friend asks no return but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other’s hopes. They are kind to each other’s dreams.

Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born -a hundred million years -and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.

Round numbers are always false.

Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right; decide on what you think is right and stick to it.

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

Do the wise thing and the kind thing too, and make the best of us and not the worst.

It is a time when one’s spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.

Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.

Tread softly, Breathe peacefully, Laugh hysterically.

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

I really do not see much use in exalting the humble and meek; they do not remain humble and meek long when they are exalted.

Ice-cream is exquisite – what a pity it isn’t illegal.

Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.

Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.

In his private heart no man much respects himself.