Not a week goes by that I do not consult my collection of quotations from the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I also make it a point to re-read an essay or two (often “The American Scholar” and “Self-Reliance”) at least once a month.

These are among my favorite observations:

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

o It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

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

o Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

o Earth laughs in flowers.

o We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

o All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

o Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

o Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

o People only see what they are prepared to see.

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

o A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

o You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

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

o Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.

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WikiBio: Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.

Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, “Nature.” Following this ground-breaking work, he gave a speech entitled “The American Scholar” in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America’s “Intellectual Declaration of Independence.”