Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

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In the vaunted works of Art
The master-stroke is Nature's part. 5.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The laws of light and of heat translate each other;-so do the laws of sound and colour; and so galvanism, electricity and magnetism are varied forms of this selfsame energy.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem, — a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The secrets of life are not shown except to sympathy and likeness.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are books … which take rank in your life with parents and lovers and passionate experiences.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Those who are esteemed umpires of taste are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The god of Victory is said to be one-handed, but Peace gives victory to both sides.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished-by fear...be honest with a man and you have no fear. Try to deceive and the relationship deteriorates.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The horseman serves the horse,
The neatherd serves the neat,
The merchant serves the purse,
The eater serves his meat;
'T is the day of the chattel,
Web to weave, and corn to grind;
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say; even though we may repeat the words ever so often.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
For it is only the finite that has wrought and suffered; the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship

Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ever from one who comes tomorrow
Men wait their good and truth to borrow.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders nobly mad.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The wise man, the true friend, the finished character, we seek everywhere, and only find in fragments.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
I trust a good deal to common fame, as we all must. If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
I think we must get rid of slavery or we must get rid of freedom.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The astronomers said, 'Give us matter and a little motion and we will construct the universe. It is not enough that we should have matter, we must also have a single impulse, one shove to launch the mass and generate the harmony of the centrifugal and centripetal forces.'... There is no end to the consequences of the act. That famous aboriginal push propagates itself through all the balls of the system, and through every atom of every ball.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds... A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.

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
He thought it happier to be dead,
To die for Beauty, than live for bread.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
History is the action and reaction of these two, nature and thought.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The sciences, even the best,-mathematics and astronomy,-are like sportsmen, who seize whatever prey offers, even without being able to make any use of it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions.

Ralph Waldo Emerson