Ralph Waldo Emerson

Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. ‘Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

Self-trust is the essence of heroism.

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

I never could keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical organization. It is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was given to the organ which enables me to make promises that the organ which should enable me to keep them was crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of mere ordinary capacity.

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

Nothing in life is more liberating than to fight for a cause larger than yourself, something that encompasses you but is not defined by your existence alone.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm

She has taken a patronizing fancy to her father, the Admiral, who accepts her condescension gratefully as age brings more and more home to him the futility of his social position.

Do or do not. There is no try.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

In charity there is no excess.

As you get older, you realize that no one has all the answers. It turns out that life is an exercise in living with the certainty of uncertainty. – Jason Kilar

Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains.

Defeat in itself was part and parcel of the great gambling game of politics. A man who could not accept it and try again was not of the stuff of which leaders are made.

Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

Nothing does more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.