Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man has a vocation. The talent is the call.

Marriage is the perfection which love aimed at, ignorant of what it sought.

The first point of courtesy must always be truth.

We do not live an equal life, but one of contrasts and patchwork; now a little joy, then a sorrow, now a sin, then a generous or brave action.

Things have their laws as well as men, and things refuse to be trifled with.

In the history of the individual is always an account of his condition, and he knows himself to be a party to his present estate.

If men would avoid that general language and general manner in which they strive to hide all that is peculiar, and would say only what was uppermost in their own minds, after their own individual manner, every man would be interesting.

Friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command.

A part of fate is the freedom of man. Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in his soul.

All persons are puzzles until at last we find in some word or act the key to the man, to the woman; straightway all their past words and actions lie in light before us.

The mark of a man of the world is absence of pretension.

The finished man of the world must eat of every apple once.

Experience is the only teacher, and we get his lesson indifferently in any school.

The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.

Debt, grinding debt, whose iron face the widow, the orphan, and the sons of genius fear and hate; debt, which consumes so much time, which so cripples and disheartens a great spirit with cares that seem so base, is a preceptor whose lessons cannot be foregone, and is needed most by those who suffer from it most.

A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no luster as you turn it in your hand, until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors.

Repose and cheerfulness is the badge of the gentleman; repose in energy.

For a great nature, it is a happiness to escape a religious training; religion of character is so apt to be invaded.

Every man is an impossibility until he is born.

One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive one.

We prize books, and they prize them most who are themselves wise.