Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dear to us are those who love us… but dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life; they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit, and urge us to new and unattempted performances.

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

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

A great man stands on God. A small man on a great man.

Many might go to Heaven with half the labor they go to hell.

A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can.

The first farmer was the first man. All historic nobility rests on the possession and use of land.

When you’re first figuring yourself out, you care so much about what people think of you.

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

We do what we must, and call it by the best names.

Often the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.

The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity.

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.

I hate women because they always know where things are.

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

Kings in this should imitate God, their mercy should be above their works.

No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.

Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.