Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it cannot be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under fourscore winters.

The best efforts of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.

There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.

Do what you know and perception is converted into character.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.

Revolutions go not backward.

A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and send their children to school with it.

It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one’s own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care.

If a man’s fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him.

I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I’ll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.

Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.

Be humble. It becomes a creature, a depending and borrowed being, that lives not of itself, but breathes in another’s air with another’s breath, and is accountable for every moment of time and can call nothing its own, but is absolutely a tenant at will of the great Lord of heaven and earth.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.