Ralph Waldo Emerson

All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

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.

A great man is always willing to be little.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage.

All Excess is ill: But Drunkenness is of the worst Sort. It spoils Health, dismounts the Mind, and unmans Men: It reveals Secrets, is Quarrelsome, Lascivious, Impudent, Dangerous and Mad. In fine, he that is drunk is not a Man: Because he is so long void of Reason, that distinguishes a Man from a Beast.

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.

Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Englishmen hate Liberty and Equality too much to understand them. But every Englishman loves a pedigree.

Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: “I’m with you kid. Let’s go.”

When Satan makes impure verses, Allah sends a divine tune to cleanse them.