Ralph Waldo Emerson

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

The masses have no habit of self reliance or original action.

Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial.

Men over forty are no judges of a book written in a new spirit.

Genius always finds itself a century too early.

The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.

I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.

Every great movement must experience three stages ridicule, discussion, adoption.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

You who write, choose a subject suited to your abilities and think long and hard on what your powers are equal to and what they are unable to perform.

Liberty is slow fruit. It is never cheap; it is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man.

He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.

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

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.

Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.

As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.