Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes (1444 Quotes)

The more reason, the less government.

I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.

Every great achievement is the victory of a flaming heart.

To fill the hour, that is happiness to fill the hour, and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval.

Men admire the man who can organize their wishes and thoughts in stone and wood and steel and brass.

We have more than we use.

The whole course of things goes to teach us faith. We need only obey. There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word.... Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which flows into you as life, place yourself in the full center of that flood, then you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done single will justify you now.

Coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power.

Thoughts are the seed of action.

Thoughts come into our minds by avenues which we never left open, and thoughts go out of our minds through avenues which we never voluntarily opened.

The rich mind lies in the sun and sleeps, and is Nature.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

Liberty is slow fruit. It is never cheap it is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

Do your work, but do your thing.

Lawyers are a prudent race though not very fond of liberty

The book written against fame and learning has the author's name on the title-page.

But I cannot recite, even thus rudely, laws of the intellect, without remembering that lofty and sequestered class of men who have been its prophets and oracles, the high-priesthood of the pure reason, the Trismegisti, the expounders of the principles of thought from age to age.

The music that can deepest reach, And cure all ill, is cordial speech.

Traveling is a fool's paradise... I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there besides me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.

Preaching is the expression of moral sentiments applied to the duties of life.

The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.

Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good 'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.

Nature hates calculators.

He is great who confers the most benefits.

We are ashamed of our thoughts and often see them brought forth by others.

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about them.

The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting.

Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified.

There is no man who is not some time indebted to his vices, as no plant that is not fed from manure

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.

To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires someof the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbors creed has lent. All are needed by each one Nothing is fair or good alone.

Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth, his hall the azure dome.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

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

Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence, the book-learned class, who value books, as such not as related to nature and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate with the world and the soul. Hence, the restorers of readings, the emendators, the bibliomaniacs of all degrees....

Give no bounties make equal laws secure life and prosperity and you need not give alms.

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

The wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more.

All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of you first.

I have no hostility to nature, but a child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons.

The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.

Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time.

Economy does not consist in saving the coal, but in using the time while it burns.

The aristocrat is the democrat ripe, and gone to seed.