Ralph Waldo Emerson

Work and thou canst escape the reward; whether the work be fine or course, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought.

The revelation of Thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

There is always a best way of doing everything.

The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.

Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything.

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men.

You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

In the end, people will judge you anyway, so don’t live our life impressing other – live your life impressing yourself.

Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyric envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.

Religion is nothing else but love of God and man.

It is better to walk alone, then with a crowd going in the wrong direction.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society, for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference.

If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

That was Youth with its reckless exuberance when all things were possible pursued by Age where we are now, looking back at what we destroyed, what we tore away from that self who could do more, and its work that’s become my enemy because that’s what I can tell you about, that Youth who could do anything.