Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous or when they are most luxurious-they are conservatives after dinner.

The finest poetry was first experience.

For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem.

Good poetry could not have been otherwise written than it is. The first time you hear it, it sounds rather as if copied out of some invisible tablet in the Eternal mind than as if arbitrarily composed by the poet.

When a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and the purity of its heart.

It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.

Love not the flower they pluck and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names.

In the vaunted works of Art, The master-stroke is Nature's part.

Nature is reckless of the individual. When she has points to carry, she carries them.

A ruddy drop of manly blood_x000D_ _x000D_ The surging sea outweighs;_x000D_ _x000D_ The world uncertain comes and goes,_x000D_ _x000D_ The lover rooted stays.

Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the total worth of man.

Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you, and you are he; then is a teaching; and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he ever lose the benefit.

Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.

Whatever is old corrupts, and the past turns to snakes.

Health and appetite impart the sweetness to sugar, bread and meat.

Live well, learn plenty, laugh often, love much.

We grant no dukedoms to the few,_x000D_ _x000D_ We hold like rights and shall;_x000D_ _x000D_ Equal on Sunday in the pew,_x000D_ _x000D_ On Monday in the mall._x000D_ _x000D_ For what avail the plough or sail,_x000D_ _x000D_ Or land, or life, if freedom fail?

Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen.

Health is the first muse, and sleep is the condition to produce it.

To be a star, you must shine your own light, follow your path, and don't worry about the darkness, for that is when the stars shine brightest._x000D_ _x000D_ Always do what you are afraid to do.