Ralph Emerson Quotes (11 Quotes)

What I must do is all that concerns me. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.

Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.

The first farmer was the first man. All historic nobility rests on the possession and use of land.

The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless it is not loving it has no ulterior and divine ends but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness.

Character is higher than intellect.

I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven.

Artists must be sacrificed to their art.

A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.

The chief mourner does not always attend the funeral.

Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal.

Insist on yourself never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.