"Our life is an apprenticeship to the..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Only poetry inspires poetry.”

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”

“All things are flowing, even those that seem immovable. The adamant is always passing into smoke. The plants imbibe the materialswhich they want from the air and the ground. They burn, that is, exhale and decompose their own bodies into the air and earth again. The animal burns, or undergoes the like perpetual consumption. The earth burns, the mountains burn and decompose, slower, but incessantly.”

“Time is our element, not a mistaken invader.”

“There are nettles everywhere, but smooth, green grasses are more common still; the blue of heaven is larger than the cloud.”

“You come to realize that life is short, and you have to step up. Don't feel sorry for me. Much is expected of those who are strong.”

“Any man is liable to err, only a fool persists in error.”

“If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already. It is but a small matter whether you read with anyone or not. I did not read with anyone. Get the books, and read and study them till you understand them in their principal features; and that is the main thing. It is of no consequence to be in a large town while you are reading. I read at New Salem, which never had three hundred people living in it. The books, and your capacity for understanding them, are just the same in all places.”

“I often visited a particular plant four or five miles distant, half a dozen times within a fortnight, that I might know exactly when it opened.”