Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop, and impoverish it.

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Trust instinct to the end, even though you can give no reason.

The roses under my window make no reference to former roses or better ones; they are what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.

Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it?

The most dangerous people are those who have passion but lack wisdom.

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

Big doors swing on little hinges.

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.

What, then, is the true Gospel of consistency? Change. Who is the really consistent man? The man who changes. Since change is the law of his being, he cannot be consistent if he stick in a rut.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.

No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can’t dishearten it.

Human ‘beans’ is the only animals that is killing their own kind.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.