Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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

The law of nature is: do the thing and you shall have the power; but they who do not the thing, have not the power.

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

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. 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.