Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

Every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

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.

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.

Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.

A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

Don`t waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.

He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.

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.

All our progress is an unfolding, like a 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.

If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.

Give all to love; obey thy heart.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.

Children are all foreigners.

Don`t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

As we grow old'Šthe beauty steals inward.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.

All life is an experiment.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

The years teach much which the days never knew.

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.

We must be our own before we can be another`s.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

The greatest difficulty is that men do not think enough of themselves, do not consider what it is that they are sacrificing when they follow in a herd, or when they cater for their establishment

The man who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight has been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the world

Plants are the young of the world, vessels of health and vigor; but they grope ever upward towards consciousness; the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground.

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

The age of a woman doesn`t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

Earth laughs in flowers.

For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child.

Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding

A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word

Pictures must not be too picturesque.

My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock, should find the time in my face.

Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

The disease with which the human mind now labors is want of faith

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

Difficulties exist to be surmounted

Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason

A man is related to all nature.

Make yourself necessary to somebody.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate fine qualities

Men are respectable only as they respect

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces mechanically on the payment of moneys

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

Love of beauty is Taste. The creation of beauty is Art.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

As soon as there is life, there is danger

Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.

There is properly no history; only biography

Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel

Life is not so short but that there is always time for courtesy

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

Discontent is want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will

Patience and fortitude conquer all things

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

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, you shall begin it well and serenely...

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail

Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.

Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.

What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.

Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner.

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one`s self?

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

Every artist was first an amateur.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

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.

There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.

The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.

So of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is spent, the more it remains.

The first wealth is health.

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire

Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

Whatever limits us, we call Fate

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.

As the traveler who has lost his way, throws his reins on his horse`s neck, and trusts to the instinct of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through this world

To believe in luck - is skepticism

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

A man in debt is so far a slave.

Imitation is suicide

We are wiser than we know.

Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance.

The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue

Insist upon yourself. Be original.

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

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

Riding a horse is not a gentle hobby, to be picked up and laid down like a game of Solitaire. It is a grand passion.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.

Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.

Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee.

We all boil at different degrees

I can find my biography in every fable that I read

Our strength grows out of our weaknesses

Fear always springs from ignorance

When it is darkest, men see the stars.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

All mankind love a lover.

Genius always finds itself a century too early.

A man`s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

All diseases run into one, old age.

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.