Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today is a king in disguise.

Not gold but only men can makeA people great and strong;Men who for truth and honors sakeStand fast and suffer long. Brave men who work while others sleep,Who dare while others flyThey build a nations pillars deepAnd lift them to the sky.

Intellectual tasting of life will not supersede muscular activity.

Every mind has a choice between truth and repose. Take which you please you can never have both.

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

Do the thing we fear, and the death of fear is certain.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.

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

It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay.

Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now.

Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.

Energy doesn’t lie so trust those vibes you’re getting.

A man’s library is a sort of harem.

I wish for you the wisdom to realize that forgiveness has nothing to do with an apology.

All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.