Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

The basis of good manners is self-reliance.

Beauty is the pilot of the young soul.

The eloquent man is he who is no eloquent speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a certain belief.

That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say; even though we may repeat the words ever so often.

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.

Money is indeed the most important thing in the world; and all sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact for its basis.

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.

Justice though moving with tardy pace, has seldom failed to overtake the wicked in their flight.

Like success, failure is many things to many people. With Positive Mental Attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order and prepare to try again.

Each of us has the right and the responsibility to asses the road which lie ahead and those over which we have traveled, and if the feature road looms ominous or unpromising, and the road back uninviting-inviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that one as well.

The true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain; and there is no good theory of disease which does not at once suggest a cure.

We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.

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.

Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.

What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?