Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every wall is a door.

The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction.

One definition of man is an intelligence served by organs.

The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.

Society is infested by persons who, seeing that the sentiments please, counterfeit the expression of them. These we call sentimentalists – talkers who mistake the description for the thing, saying for having.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have it, it requires ten times as much skill to keep it.

The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change thing I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything.

If they had not landed there would be some reason for celebrating the fact.

There is only one thing about which I shall have no regrets when my life ends. I have savored to the full all the small, daily joys. The bright sunshine on the breakfast table; the smell of the air at dusk; the sound of the clock ticking; the light rains that start gently after midnight; the hour when the family come home; Sunday-evening tea before the fire! I have never missed one moment of beauty, not even taken it for granted. Spring, summer, autumn, or winter. I wish I had failed as little in other ways.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.

Nuptial love makes mankind; friendly love perfects it; but wanton love corrupts and debases it.

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

I heartily accept the motto,That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that i am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible….except by getting off his back.