Ralph Waldo Emerson

"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.'"

"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."

"To fill the hour──that is happiness."

"Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much."

"The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs."

"The reward of a thing well done is having done it."

"Pictures must not be too picturesque."

"Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed."

"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."

"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."

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn"

"Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest."

"Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect."

"Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus."

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

"Every artist was first an amateur."

"Books are for nothing but to inspire"

"Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures."

"The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs."

"Books are for nothing but to inspire"