Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood."

"All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen."

"People do not deserve good writing, they are so pleased with bad."

"Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great."

"Life is a series of surprises and would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not."

"When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, your're the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying."

"Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the 'Not Me,' that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, 'Nature.'"

"All mankind love a lover."

"Beauty is the virtue of the body as virtue is the beauty of the soul"

"Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up"

"What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find."

"Be an opener of doors"

"Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them."

"We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities."

"We are wiser than we know."

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."

"A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking."

"Books are for nothing but to inspire"

"The secret of poetry is never explained - is always new. We have not got farther than mere wonder at the delicacy of the touch, & the eternity it inherits. In every house a child that in mere play utters oracles, & knows not that they are such. 'Tis as easy as breath. 'Tis like this gravity, which holds the Universe together, & none knows what it is."

"Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss."