Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes (1444 Quotes)

Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now.

Reality is a sliding door.

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

When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.

Imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

If you can do a thing once, you can do it twice. If you can do it twice, you can make a habit out of it

War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man.

They conquer who believe they can.

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply, not into the market, not into opinion, not into patronage

The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.

Remarkable trait in the American Character is the union, not very infrequent, of Yankee cleverness with spiritualism.

Don't waste life in doubts and fears spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hours duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow it.

A man's wife has more power over him than the state has.

Spartans, stoics, heroes, saints and gods use short and positive speech.

Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.

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.

The greatest genius is the most indebted person.

The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.

It is my desire, in the office of a Christian minister, to do nothing which I cannot do with my whole heart. Having said this, I have said all.

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.

The highest revelation is that God is in every man.

New arts destroy the old.

Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.

The only gift is a portion of thyself ... the poet brings his poem the shepherd his lamb....

They can conquer who believe they can. He has not learned the first lesson in life who does not every day surmount a fear.

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

Do that which is assigned to you and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

When I first open my eyes upon the morning meadows and look out upon the beautiful world, I thank God I am alive

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

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

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

The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. The simplicity of nature is not that which may be easily read but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

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

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.

I gave thee sight, where is it now?

Meet your failure nobly, and it will not differ from success.

A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.

Every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical and literature a quotation.

Society always consists in the greatest part, of young and foolish persons.

I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.

The soul's emphasis is always right.