Ralph Waldo Emerson

God enters by a private door into every individual.

Travel is a fools paradise.

Do what you know and perception is converted into character.

He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.

Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen.

A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.

Life is one long process of getting tired.

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.

The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.

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.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.

There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.

The way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of themselves, reminds me of those monkeys which cling by their tails – aye, whose tails contract about the limbs, even the dead limbs, of the forest, and they hang suspended beyond the hunter’s reach long after they are dead. It is of no use to argue with such men. They have not an apprehensive intellect, but merely, as it were a prehensile tail.

Love is only one of many passions.

If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated, it will cool you; If you are depressed, it will cheer you; If you are excited, it will calm you.

It is nobler to be good, and it is nobler to teach others to be good – and less trouble!

Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.