Ralph Waldo Emerson

The highest compact we can make with our fellow is – Let there be truth between us two forevermore.

Fear always springs from ignorance.

At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

The search after the great men is the dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of manhood.

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.

Some critics will write ‘Maya Angelou is a natural writer’ – which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.

Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.

Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles.

The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monotonously.

Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

Humanity has unquestionably one really effective weapon

For the most important decisions in your life, trust your intuition, and then work with everything you have, to prove it right.

The virtue in most request is conformity.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favorable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad.