Ralph Waldo Emerson

Artists must be sacrificed to their art.

The years teach much what the days never knew.

We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a belly-full of words and do not know a thing. The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education.

Beauty without expression is boring.

A man’s action is only a picture book of his creed.

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

Accept your genius and say what you think.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.

We are often deterred from crime by the disgrace of others.

Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.

Are you using your pain as an excuse or as a source of strength?

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference.

Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.

The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear.

Watch what you say, and whatever you say, practice it.

I never could tell a lie that anybody would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.

Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods loved him because men hated him.

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

How can one be well…when one suffers morally?