Emerson, Ralph Waldo

"Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life."

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."

"Vigour is contagious, and whatever makes us either think or feel strongly ads to our power and enlarges our field of action."

"The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common."

"The reward of a thing well done is to have it done."

"Every man I meet is in some way my superior."

"Patience and fortitude conquer all things."

"A man is known by the books he reads."