Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet.

1394. The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.

1395. Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.

1396. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

1397. Beware what you set your heart upon. For it surely shall be yours.

1398. We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation -rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.

1399. It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

1400. Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.

1363. Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.

1364. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

1365. If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

1366. Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

1367. People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

1368. You become what you think about all day long.

1369. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.

1370. It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself.

1343. Always do what you are afraid to do.

1344. I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.

1345. 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.

1346. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

1347. The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

1277. Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

1278. Every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.

1279. Love, and you shall be loved.

1280. Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

1281. Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

1282. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays.

1239. Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

1240. To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

1241. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

1242. To be great is to be misunderstood.

1243. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

1244. The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.

1245. Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting… Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.

280. For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.

281. Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

282. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

283. Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

284. Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

285. He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

286. A man in debt is so far a slave.

287. For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.