Ralph Waldo Emerson

Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

Life too near paralyses art.

Everything intercepts us from ourselves.

We have more than we use.

Give no bounties: make equal laws: secure life and prosperity and you need not give alms.

What a new face courage puts on everything!

Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.

Fortune knocks at every man’s door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her.

When the eye is not set on one leaf and you face the tree with nothing in mind, any number of leaves are visible to the eye.

You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted.

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

I desire to gain your Love and Friendship by a kind, Just and Peaceful Life.

The ship of heaven guides itself and will not accept a wooden rudder.

People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.

We must hold a man amenable to reason for the choice of his daily craft or profession. It is not an excuse any longer for his deeds that they are the custom of his trade. What business has he with an evil trade?

It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.

Ready are you? What know you of ready?

Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men’s manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.