Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

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 lived. This is to have succeeded.

All the thoughts of a turtle are turtles, and of a rabbit, rabbits.

Commerce is a game of skill, which every man cannot play, which few men can play well. The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic. There is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune, and so, in making money. Men talk as if there were some magic about this, and believe in magic, in all parts of life. He knows, that all goes on the old road, pound for pound, cent for cent, — for every effect a perfect cause, — and that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.

We boil at different degrees.

Power ceases in the instant of repose.

Life is a search after power.

The secret of success in society is a certain heartiness and sympathy. A man who is not happy in the company, cannot find any word in his memory that will fit the occasion. All his information is a little impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds in every turn of the conversation occasions for the introduction of what he has to say. The favorites of society and what it calls whole souls, are able men, and of more spirit than wit, who have no uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and the company, contended and contenting.

Power is the first good.

Men are what their mothers made them.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word Politic, which now for ages has signified cunning, intimating that the State is a trick?

Every man is wanted and no man is wanted much.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

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

We think our civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star. In our barbarous society the influence of character is in its infancy.

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 and mole.

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

A great man is always willing to be little.

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.

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

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

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

All mankind love a lover.

Always do what you are afraid to do.

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best.

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.

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

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

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

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

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

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.

Do not craze yourself with thinking, but go about your business anywhere.

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

Earth laughs in flowers.

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

Every artist was first an amateur.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

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

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

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

God enters by a private door into every individual.

Good men must not obey the laws too much.

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force - that thoughts rule the world.

He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

I do not see how a barbarous community and a civilized community can constitute one state. I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom.

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!

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

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

In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.

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

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

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

I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom.

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

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

Nature, when she adds difficulties, adds brains.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

Only the great generalizations survive.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

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

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.

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

Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment.

Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into all lower forms. All things real are so by so much virtue as they contain.

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

The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.

The first wealth is health.

The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.

The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

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.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance.

The years teach much which the days never know.

The years teach much which the days never know.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

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.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

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

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

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

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

Valor consists in the power of self-recovery.

We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.

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

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying.

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

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effiminated by position of nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive.

All life is an experiment.

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.

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions.

As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?

Conservatism stands on man’s confessed limitations; reform on his indisputable infinitude; conservatism on circumstance; liberalism on power; one goes to make an adroit member of the social frame; the other to postpone all things to the man himself.

Don’t be a cynic, and bewail and bemoan. Omit the negative propositions. Don’t waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good. Set down nothing that will help somebody.

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.

Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.

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

Genius has no taste for weaving sand.

God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please-you can never have both.

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.

Health and appetite impart the sweetness to sugar, bread and meat.

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is a question of success, looks into his work for a reply.

Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it.

Intellect strips, affection clothes.

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

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

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

Money, which represents the prose of life, and is hardly spoken of in parlors without apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm

Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow.

Religion is as effectively destroyed by bigotry as by indifference.

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.

The believing we do something when we do nothing is the first illusion of tobacco.

The effect of the indulgence of human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration.

The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency, and qualifies all his qualifications, but who throws himself on your part so heartily, that he can get you out of a scrape.

The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.

The high prize of life, the crowning glory of a man is to be born with a bias to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness-whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.

The invariable mark of a dream is to see it come true.

The less government we have the better-the fewer laws and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal government is the influence of private character, the growth of the individual.

The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it-so fine that we often are on the line and do not know it.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.

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

The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of both.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

We forget ourselves and our destinies in health; and the chief use of temporary sickness is to remind us of these concerns.

What I need is someone who will make me do what I can.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.