Ralph Waldo Emerson

I didn’t find my friends; the good Lord gave them to me.

If man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

Every thought which genius and piety throw into the world alters the world.

Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.

Every great achievement is the victory of a flaming heart.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

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

How real is any of the past, being every moment revalued to make the present possible.

It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves.

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.

The stupidity of men always invites the insolence of power.

I will never do this, says one, yet does it: I am resolved to do this, says another; but flags upon second Thoughts: Or does it, tho’ awkwardly, for his Word’s sake: As if it were worse to break his Word, than to do amiss in keeping it.

Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.