Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes (1444 Quotes)

Nature ... She pardons no mistakes. Her yea is yea, and her nay, nay.

A great man stands on God. A small man on a great man.

When India was explored and the wonderful riches of Indian theological literature found that dispelled once and for all the dream about Christianity being the sole revelation.

Sleep lingers all our lifetime about our eyes, as night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir-tree.

Wherever we go, whatever we do, self is the sole subject we study and learn.

Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes.

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

Men wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices, but not from their vices.

Every man is entitled to be valued by his best moment.

Every ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in.

The power which resides in man is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

Grow angry slowly there's plenty of time.

The mind does not create what it perceives, any more than the eye creates the rose.

Who you are is speaking so loudly that I can't hear what you're saying.

Talent finds its models, methods, and ends in society, exists for exhibition, and goes to the soul only for power to work. Genius is its own end, and draws its means and the style of its architecture from within.

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.

A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.

The god of victory is said to be one-handed, but peace gives victory on both sides.

The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?

Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being Whence, then, this worship of the past.

It is the eye which makes the horizon.

There is a tendency for things to right themselves.

All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.

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

There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.

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

Each man has his own vocation his talent is his call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him.

In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and identities in all the religions of humanity

There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer.

Common sense is as rare as genius, - is the basis of genius

If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods

A sect or a party is an elegant incognito, devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.

We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected.

Beauty rests on necessities.

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

Language is fossil poetry.

He who loves goodness harbors angels, reveres reverence, And lives with God.

Strong men greet war, tempest, hard times. They wish, as Pindar said, to tread the floors of hell, with necessities as hard as iron.

But God said;
I will have a purer gift,
There is smoke in the flame;
New flowerets bring, new prayers uplift,
And love without a name.

Men talk as if victory were something fortunate. Work is victory.

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

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

It is so easy to give a naughty boy a slap, overpower him in an instant, and make him obey, that in this world of hurry and distraction, who can possibly spend time to wait for the slow return of his reason and the conquest of himself in the uncertai

He is a good man who can receive a gift well.

My chief want in life is someone who shall make me do what I can.

That which builds is better than that which is built.

So far as a person thinks they are free.

The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professors of books and I think no chair is so much needed.

One lesson we learn early, that in spite of seeming difference, men are all of one pattern. We readily assume this with our mates, and are disappointed and angry if we find that we are premature, and that their watches are slower than ours.

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol, and an audience is electrified.