Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.

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

That which we call sin in others, is experiment for us.

The stupidity of men always invites the insolence of power.

An empire is an immense egotism.

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.

Men are what their mothers made them.

The worst sin… is… to be indifferent.

Every old poem is sacred.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

Let your character be kept up the very end, just as it began, and so be consistent.

To know fulfillment, nourish what is for the belly and not the eye.

No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.

As Love ought to bring them together, so it is the best Way to keep them well together.

What you seek in vain for, half your life, one day you come full upon, all the family at dinner. You seek it like a dream, and as soon as you find it, you become its prey.

There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.

Talent for talent’s sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.