Ralph Waldo Emerson

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

Genius Borrows nobly.

Beware what you set your heart upon. For it shall surely be yours.

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.

Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again – and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

No matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. Many will read the book before one thinks of quoting a passage. As soon as he has done this, that line will be quoted east and west.

Private men, in fine, are so much their own, that, paying common dues, they are sovereigns of all the rest. Yet the public must and will be served; and they that do it well, deserve public marks of honour and respect. To do so, men must have public minds, as well as salaries; or they will serve private ends at the public cost. Government can never be well administered, but where those intrusted make conscience of well discharging their places.

I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.

We have a problem. Congratulations. But it’s a tough problem. Then double congratulations.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.

Friendship . . . is an Union of Spirits, a Marriage of Hearts, and the Bond thereof Vertue.

He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father’s wisdom than he who has a great deal left him does to his father’s care.