Our first mistake is the belief that the circumstance gives the joy which we give to the circumstance.
Ralph Waldo EmersonPride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well contented with fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.--Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving.
Ralph Waldo EmersonIt has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature that a man, having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal from the writings of others at discretion.
Ralph Waldo Emerson