RALPH WALDO EMERSON
US essayist & poet
(1803 - 1882)
"The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it."
"A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer."
"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
"Insist on yourself; never imitate... Every great man is unique."
"The ancestor of every action is a thought."
"The only way to have a friend is to be one."
"Every artist was first an amateur."
"Every hero becomes a bore at last."
"To be great is to be misunderstood"
"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."
"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."
"All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen."
"Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live."
"Every revolution was thought first in one man's mind."
"The foolish man wonders at the unusual, but the wise man at the usual."
"None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone."
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."