Ralph Waldo Emerson

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

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.

Knowledge comes by eyes always open and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power.

The intellectual man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge.

There is properly no history; only biography.

I hate women because they always know where things are.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.

We must train hard. It’s not about denying a weakness may exist but about denying its right to persist.

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

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

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

He hates chess. He says it is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something clever when they are only wasting their time.

These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger.

Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.

A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing.

There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Congress.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and new.

Be better. Be better at everything. Be better fathers… Men can be better husbands, which is – be a part of your family’s life. Do the dishes. Don’t babysit your children. You don’t babysit your own children. Be engaged. Don’t just think going to work and coming home makes you a man. Being a father, being engaged, all that stuff is important. Be a better employer. When you are sitting at a seat of power at a table of any kind and you look around you just see you, it’s just you and a bunch of men around a table, on a golf course, making deals, and you allow that to happen, and you’re okay with that – be better.

Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.