Ralph Waldo Emerson

The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic. There is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune in making money. Men talk as if there were some magic about this. He knows that all goes on the old road, pound for pound, cent for cent – for every effect a perfect cause – and that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.

For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars.

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era?

There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

The quieter you become, you more you are able to hear.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

Obscurity and competence: That is the life that is worth living.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined – to strengthen each other – to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

Are you using your pain as an excuse or as a source of strength?

Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than the arguments of its opposers.

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us.

To act with doubleness towards a man whose own conduct was double, was so near an approach to virtue that it deserved to be called by no meaner name than diplomacy.

There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.

Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run.

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.