The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee, and do not try to make the universe a blind alley.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every artist was first an amateur.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
To be great is to be misunderstood.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail?
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
To believe in your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is to you.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lives within us.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul simply has nothing to do.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
No law can be sacred to me be that of my nature.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The difference between men is in their principle of association. Some men classify objects by color and size and other accidents of appearance; others by intrinsic likeness, or by the relation of cause and effect. The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For the eye is fastened on the life, and slights the circumstance. Every chemical substance, every plant, every animal in its growth, teaches the unity of cause, the variety of appearance.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
When the voice of a prophet out of the deeps of antiquity merely echoes to him a sentiment of his infancy, a prayer of his youth, he then pierces to the truth through all the confusion of tradition and the caricature of institutions. Rare, extravagant spirits come by us at intervals, who disclose to us new facts in nature. I see that men of God have, from time to time, walked among men and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Broader and deeper we must write our annals, from an ethical reformation, from an influx of the ever new, ever sanative conscience, if we would trulier express our central and wide-related nature, instead of this old chronology of selfishness and pride to which we have too long lent our eyes. Already that day exists for us, shines in on us at unawares, but the path of science and of letters is not the way into nature. The idiot, the Indian, the child, and unschooled farmer's boy, stand nearer to the light by which nature is to be read, than the dissector or the antiquary.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Can anyone remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Children are all foreigners.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every hero becomes a bore at last.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Give all to love; obey thy heart.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called history is.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the Stern Fact, the Sad Self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In different hours a man represents each of several ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Insist on yourself; never imitate... Every great man is unique.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is an amiable illusion, which the shape of our planet prompts, that every man is at the top of the world.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, "Always do what you are afraid to do."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some men's words I remember so well that I must often use them to express my thought. Yes, because I perceive that we have heard the same truth, but they have heard it better.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Speak what you think today in words as hard as cannon-balls and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The ancestor of every action is a thought.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The force of character is cumulative.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only gift is a portion of thyself.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only reward of virtue is virtue.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it. (see also: Friendship)
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The voyage of the best ship is a zizzag line of a hundred tacks.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The world belongs to the energetic.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and squirrel.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tis the good reader that makes the good book.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. (see also: Truth & Lies)
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
We do what we must, and call it by the best names.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you strike at a king, you must kill him.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wit makes its own welcome and levels all distinctions.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance. (see also: Chance)
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have done singly will justify you now.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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 bit 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 to have succeeded.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
When it is darkest, men see the stars.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whatever limits us, we call Fate.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Imagination is not the talent of some men, but is the health of every man.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.... Every influx of atheism, of skepticism, is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion, and making way for truth.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Salvation would not be a question of accepting a creed, but of acquiring insight.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful we must carry it with us or we find it not.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The years teach much that the days never know.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Invention breeds invention.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Good men must not obey the laws too well.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man's library is a sort of harem.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
People only see what they are prepared to see.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institutions are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born: that they are not superior to the citizen: that every one of them was once the act of a single man: every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular case: that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may make as good; we may make better.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The craft of the merchant is this: bringing a thing from where it abounds to where it is costly.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be a little careful of your Library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, What it will do with you? You will come here & get books that will open your eyes, & your ears, & your curiosity, & turn you inside out or outside in.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If government knew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply the population.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Technorati Tags: Quotations
Post new comment