Ralph Waldo Emerson

She shows us only surfaces, but she is million-fathoms deep.

The world is his who can see through its pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold, is there only by sufferance,--by your sufferance. See it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow.

Bare lists of words are found suggestive to an imaginative and excited mind.

Fear always springs from ignorance.

Do the thing and you will have the power.

Envy is ignorance, Imitation is Suicide.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

The god of Victory is said to be one-handed, but Peace gives victory to both sides.

In order for one to learn the important lessons of life, one must first overcome a fear each day.

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

The people are to be taken in very small doses.

The never-ending task of self improvement.

When I go into the garden with a spade and dig a bed I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands.

It does not to dwell on dreams and forget to live, but it is equally foolish to ignore the past – never forget.

Nothing in nature is exhausted in its first use...In God, every end is converted into a new means.

Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today. Let us treat men and women well; treat them as if they were real; perhaps they are.

Keep your friendships in repair.

Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee.

Faith and love are apt to be spasmodic in the best minds: Men live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which yet they never enter, and with their hand on the doorlatch they die outside.