Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is a happy talent to know how to play.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

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.

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.

Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

All diseases run into one, old age.

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity: no really self-respecting woman would take advantage of it.

All generalizations are false, including this one.

Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be.

I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I’ll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.

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.

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

That strong mother doesn’t tell her cub ‘Son, stay weak so the wolves can get you’. She says, ‘Toughen up, this is reality we are living in’.

No just cause is futile, even if it’s lost, if it helps make the future better than the past.

Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.

The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.