Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.”

“What lies behind us & what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. -Ralph Waldo Emerson”

“Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.”

“A man is what he thinks about all day long.”

“There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all parts, that is, the poet.”

“The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.”

“Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.”

“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.”

“We do not know today whether we are busy or idle. In times when we thought ourselves indolent we have discovered afterward that much was accomplished and much was begun in us.”

“In all my lectures, I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the private man.”

“It is not the length of life, but the depth.”

“It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”

“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”

“Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.”

“Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.”

“Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying.”

“Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.”

“There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.”

“The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.”

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”