Ralph Waldo Emerson

People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.

Beauty without expression is boring.

Each work of art excludes the world, concentrates attention on itself. For the time it is the only thing worth doing –to do just that; be it a sonnet, a statue, a landscape, an outline head of Caesar, or an oration. Presently we return to the sight of another that globes itself into a whole as did the first, for example, a beautiful garden; and nothing seems worth doing in life but laying out a garden.

A man’s style is his mind’s voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.

Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day – farther and wider – and rest thee by many brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.

Such as take lodgings in a head that’s to be let unfurnished.

The amount of people in this world who are here to do something great far outweighs the rest.

Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

All colors will agree in the dark.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

When things are steep, remember to stay level-headed.

You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success – or are they holding you back?

Why is that others have so much faith in me, while I have so little? Why can’t I have the same belief in me that they have? Why can’t I see in myself, what they do? What is it that makes me, hold myself back? How many more hurdles do I need to overcome? There are so many questions that I have to find the answers to. And I will only find them by focusing and being completely honest with myself.

Death is the king of this world: ‘Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet.

To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.