Every man's task [his 'great dream' and impassioned life-goal] is his life preserver.
Ralph Waldo EmersonNature has her own best mode of doing each thing, and she has somewhere told it plainly, if we will keep our eyes and ears open. If not, she will not be slow in undeceiving us, when we prefer our own way to hers.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe selfish man suffers more from his selfishness than he from whom that selfishness withholds some important benefit.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe secret of genius is to suffer no fiction to exist for us; to realize all that we know; in the high refinement of modern life,in arts, in sciences, in books, in men, to exact good faith, reality, and a purpose; and first, last, midst, and without end, to honor every truth by use.
Ralph Waldo Emerson