Ralph Waldo Emerson

Cities give us collision. ‘Tis said, London and New York take the nonsense out of a man.

Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.

The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits, which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.

Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other.

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.

A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

I am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without experience; in the attainment of sciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of life: I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness.

There is a hush over all Europe, nay, over all the world. Alas! it is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear. Listen! No, listen carefully, I think I hear somethingyes, there it was quite clear. Dont you hear it? It is the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the paradegrounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million German soldiers and more than a million Italiansgoing on maneuversyes, only on maneuvers!

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.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

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

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

It is not where you start but how high you aim that matters for success.