Ralph Waldo Emerson

Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.

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

Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

A man cannot free himself by any self-denying ordinances, neither by water nor potatoes, nor by violent possibilities, by refusing to swear, refusing to pay taxes, by going to jail, or by taking another man’s crops or squatting on his land. By none of these ways can he free himself; no, nor by paying his debts with money; only by obedience to his own genius.

There is properly no history; only biography.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

To hazard much to get much has more of avarice than wisdom.

Work and thou canst escape the reward; whether the work be fine or course, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought.

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

Let your family, staff, and friends know that you’re still the same person, despite all the publicity and notoriety that accompanies your position.

All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was.

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.

To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.

One thing you learn: if you want to reveal yourself, you also have to know where to stop.

Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?

Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self-Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity.

One night awaits all, and death’s path must be trodden once and for all.

When I look back on all the worries I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened.