Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected

See only that thou work and thou canst not escape the reward.

Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise.

Life is a progress, and not a station.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.

Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.

Men love to wonder and that is the seed of our science.

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

Remember who you are.

Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.

When a man is just and firm in his purpose, the citizens burning to approve a wrong or the frowning looks of a tyrant. Do not shake his fixed mind, nor the Southwind. Wild lord of the uneasy Adriatic, nor the thunder in the mighty hand of Jove: Should the heavens crack and tumble down, as the ruins crushed him he would not fear.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.

The love of economy is the root of all virtue.

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature – if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you – know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude.

The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.