Ralph Waldo Emerson

The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts.

His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim.

How many attractions for us have our passing fellows in the streets, both male and female, which our ethics forbid us to express, which yet infuse so much pleasure into life. A lovely child, a handsome youth, a beautiful girl, a heroic man, a maternal woman, a venerable old man, charm us, though strangers, and we cannot say so, or look at them but for a moment.

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.

He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds.

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.

This is the comfort of the godly: the grave cannot hold them, and they live as soon as they die. For death is no more than turning us over from time to eternity.

She has lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.

For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?

All good things are cheap: all bad are very dear.

We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.

Women tell men things that they are not likely to find out for themselves.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable – any real insight or broad human sentiment.

I always like people who have developed long and hard, particularly through introspection and a lot of dedication. I think that what they arrive at is, usually, deeper and more beautiful than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning.

Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.

Love is only one of many passions.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?