American poet, philosopher, lecturer, and essayist of 19th century America. An isolated and self-sufficient individual deeply involved in study of his social relationships, anti-slavery activity and focus on his mature ethical thought. His essays can be appreciated for their imaginative, paradoxical, accumulative and analogical rhetoric.
This great man had a strong influence on American poetry, his connections with the later philosophical movement of pragmatism, and his contributions to the theory of democracy are remembered. (1803-1882)
– Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes –
Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our distrust is very expensive.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are always getting ready to live but never living.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Genius always finds itself a century too early.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Let every man shovel out his own snow and the whole city will be passable.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The highest compact we can make with our fellow is — “Let there be truth between us two forevermore.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is a progress, and not a station.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-trust is the essense of heroism.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is not length of life, but depth of life.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Skill to do comes of doing.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-trust is the essense of heroism.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be Silly. Be honest. Be kind.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A great man is always willing to be little.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is the quality of the moment, not the number of days, or events, or of actors, that imports.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
People only see what they are prepared to see.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Science does not know its debt to imagination.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Revolutions go not backward.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The search after the great men is the dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of manhood.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some books leave us free and some books make us free.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is what he thinks about all day long.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our best thoughts come from others.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is a method, a progressive arrangement; a selecting principle, gathering his like to him; wherever he goes.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men are respectable only as they respect
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; Unbelief, in denying them.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
He takes men out of time and makes them feel eternity.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no chance and anarchy in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Reality is a sliding door.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Genius always finds itself a century too early.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
