Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes (1444 Quotes)

Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass.

Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen.

Give me an amulet
That keeps intelligence with you,
Red when you love, and rosier red,
And when you love not, pale and blue.

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

The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point.

A strenuous soul hates cheap success.

Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention it is all memory. Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry.

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.

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

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

Love and you shall be loved.

If a man owns land, the land owns him.

Who taught thee me to name?

The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact.

People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.

A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts but as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our own.

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

And he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.

Life too near paralyses art.

Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.

It is only when the mind and character slumber that dress can be seen.

'Tis the old secret of the gods that they come in low disguises.

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

A vivid thought brings the power to paint it and in proportion to the depth of its source is the force of its projection.

Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today.

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

The cardinal virtue of a teacher (is) to protect the pupil from his own influence

Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow

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

Never read any book that is not a year old.

The universe does not jest with us, but is in earnest

One moment of a mans life is a fact so stupendous as to take the luster out of all fiction.

The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue and no genius can long or often utter anything which is not invited and gladly entertained by men around him.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured From Evils which never arrived.

There are three wants which never can be satisfied that of the rich, who wants something more that of the sick, who wants something different and that of the traveler, who says, 'Anywhere but here.'

Truth, and goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same All.

One definition of man is 'an intelligence served by organs.'

Only poetry inspires poetry.

The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made

The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.

We fancy men are individuals so are pumpkins but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history

There never was a child so lovely but his mother wasn't glad to get him asleep.

The eye is easily frightened.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

My good hoe as it bites the ground revenges my wrongs, and I have less lust to bite my enemies. In the smoothing the rough hillocks, I smooth my temper.

Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.