Quotes By Author
Quotations By Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ability
Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.
Adversity
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
Adversity
Strong men greet war, tempest, hard times. They wish, as Pindar said, to tread the floors of hell, with necessities as hard as iron.
Affection
The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennuis, vanish, - all duties even.
American
America is another name for opportunity.
Avarice
We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases.
Beauty
Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.
Beauty
A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.
Beginnings
The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.
Beliefs
We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears beauty.
Bore
Every hero becomes a bore at last.
Business
This whole business of Trade gives me to pause and think, as it constitutes false relations between men; inasmuch as I am prone to count myself relieved of any responsibility to behave well and nobly to that person who I pay with money, whereas if I had not that commodity, I should be put on my good behavior in all companies, and man would be a benefactor to man, as being himself his only certificate that he had a right to those aids and services which each asked of the other.
Censorship
Every burned book enlightens the world.
Change
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines.
Charity
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no person can sincerely try to help another without helping themselves.
City
Cities force growth, and make men talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial.
Conformity
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Conformity
A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.
Conquer
Patience and fortitude conquer all things.
Conservative-Liberal
Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner.
Conservative-Liberal
All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive.
Courage
Half a man's wisdom goes with his courage.
Courage
What a new face courage puts on everything!
Courage
Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.
Culture
Culture is one thing and varnish is another.
Culture
Culture, with us, ends in headache.
Culture
The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral sentiment.
Danger
As soon as there is life there is danger.
Decision
Every man finds a sanction for his simplest claims and deeds, in decisions of his own mind, which he calls Truth and Holiness.
Destiny
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Duty
So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man. When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.
Education
The secret of education is respecting the pupil.
Enthusiasm
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm
Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding.
Evil
Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
Excellence
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
Excellence
Is it so bad 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.
Faith
The faith that stands on authority is not faith.
Fate
Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Friendship
The only way to have a friend is to be one. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Giving
I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.
Growth
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Happiness
To fill the hour - that is happiness.
History
A man finds room in the few square inches of his face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Honor
The louder he talked of his honor the faster we counted our spoons. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Imagination
There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination.
Indignation
A good indignation brings out all one's powers.
Inspiration
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Inspiration
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
Instinct
All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud, you have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Intelligence
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius.
Journey
To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.
Kindness
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
Love
All mankind loves a lover.
Memory
The senses collect the surface facts of matter...It was sensation; when memory came, it was experience; when mind acted, it was knowledge; when mind acted on it as knowledge, it was thought.
Politics
A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.
Quotations
Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
Quotations
Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.
Quotations
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
Religion
All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Silence
Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.
Spirituality
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Spirituality
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.
Success
Hitch your wagon to a star.
Success
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
Success
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
Thoughts
Thoughts come into our minds by avenues which we never left open, and thoughts go out of our minds through avenues which we never voluntarily opened.
Thoughts
The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.
Truth
The finest and noblest ground on which people can live is truth; the real with the real; a ground on which nothing is assumed.
Valor
There is always safety in valor.
Wealth
The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.
Wisdom
The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Work
It is the privilege of any human work which is well done to invest the doer with a certain haughtiness.