Ralph Waldo Emerson

The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.

Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the book-worm.

We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.

Stay with me,’ he said, ‘until the sun goes out, the seas are parched, and the wind draws its last breath.

It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.

The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures of directions for human life; you have much in little; they save time in speaking; and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answer.

The only reward of virtue is virtue the only way to have a friend is to be one.

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.

The greatest genius is the most indebted person.

Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.

Honor bespeaks worth. Confidence begets trust. Service brings satisfaction. Cooperation proves the quality of leadership.

What you can’t pay back you pay forward.

We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

The Humble, Meek, Merciful, Just, Pious and Devout Souls, are everywhere of one religion; and when Death has taken off the Mask, they will know one another, though the divers Liveries they wear here make them Strangers.

Breed is stronger than pasture.

Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.

With all the doubt, with every worry, with all the negativity that I mistook for honesty, it kept me blinded. Lying for so long, I fooled myself in believing it to be my reality. And living in that world, it was my reality. Like when the lights come on, or when the curtains are drawn back, the shock of the clarity, meant I had to adjust to the new world I was witnessing. An honest; good with the bad, world, that I can thrive and grow in.