Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

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Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet,
Thou dost mock at fate and care.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency.… Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is in nature a parallel unity which corresponds to the unity in the mind and makes it available. This methodizing mind meets no resistance in its attempts. The scattered blocks, with which it strives to form a symmetrical structure, fit. This design following after finds with joy that like design went before. Not only man puts things in a row, but things belong in a row.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick,-no more. They eat your service like apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel you, and delight in you all the time.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The world is his, who has money to go over it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
We infer the spirit of the nation in great measure from the language, which is a sort of monument, to which each forcible individual in a course of many hundred years has contributed a stone.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is the hardest task in the world? To think.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the fruit of his character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The true philosopher and the true poet are one,
and a beauty, which is truth,
and a truth, which is beauty,
is the aim of both.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
That which we call sin in others, is experiment for us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The lessons of science should be experimental also. The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on astronomy; the shock of the electric spark in the elbow outvalues all theories; the taste of the nitrous oxide, the firing of an artificial volcano, are better than volumes of chemistry.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is too short to waste
The critic bite or cynic bark,
Quarrel, or reprimand;
'Twill soon be dark;
Up! mind thine own aim, and
God speed the mark!

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Science was false by being unpoetical. It assumed to explain a reptile or a mollusk, and isolated it-which is hunting for life in graveyards. Reptile or mollusk or man or angel only exists in system, in relation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man cannot utter two or three sentences without disclosing to intelligent ears precisely where he stands in life and thought, whether in the kingdom of the senses and the understanding, or in that of ideas and imagination, or in the realm of intuitions and duty.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Keep cool: it will be all one a hundred years hence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short in all management of human affairs.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates all men.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have been quoted as saying captious things about travel; but I mean to do justice. I think, there is a restlessness in our people, which argues want of character. All educated Americans, first or last, go to Europe; — perhaps, because it is their mental home, as the invalid habits of this country might suggest. An eminent teacher of girls said, "the idea of a girl's education, is, whatever qualifies them for going to Europe." Can we never extract this tape-worm of Europe from the brain of our countrymen?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
I cannot find language of sufficient energy to convey my sense of the sacredness of private integrity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Far off, men swell, bully, and threaten; bring them hand to hand, and they are feeble folk.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The soul refuses limits and always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism.

Ralph Waldo Emerson