Ralph Waldo Emerson

Artists must be sacrificed to their art.

Imagination is not a talent of some people but is the health of everyone.

No matter how often you are defeated, you are born to victory.

Tis the old secret of the gods that they come in low disguises.

The State must follow, and not lead, the character and progress of the citizen.

I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.

You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices.

When it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones.

The chief mourner does not always attend the funeral.

Suspicion is most often useless pain.

Amuse not thy self therefore with the numerous Opinions of the World, nor value thy self upon verbal Orthodoxy, Philosophy, or thy Skill in Tongues, or Knowledge of the Fathers; (too much the Business and Vanity of the World). But in this rejoyce, That thou knowest God, that is the Lord, who exerciseth loving Kindness, and Judgment; and Righteousness in the Earth.

There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.

At 70 years old, if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, It would be to use the phrase ‘f**k off’ much more frequently.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

Images also help me find and realise ideas. I look at hundreds of very different, contrasting images and I pinch details from them, rather like people who eat from other people

More knowledge may be gained of a man’s real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory.

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

Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life can understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into the absorbing soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances.