Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

“To be great is to be misunderstood.”

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

“Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.”

“Insist on yourself; never imitate.”

“Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation.”

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”

“Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”

“Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.”

“Self-reliance is its aversion.”

“It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.”

“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness.”

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”

“Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.”

“In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts.”

“They come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”

“Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this.”

“They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility, then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side.”

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