Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotations

Guest Author - Danielle Hollister
Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotations
  1. "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. "

  2. "Sprinkle joy. "

  3. "Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind. "

  4. "If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. "

  5. "We are always getting ready to live but never living. "

  6. "No great man ever complains of want of opportunity. "

  7. "Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. "

  8. "Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. "

  9. "Patience and fortitude conquer all things. "

  10. "The world belongs to the energetic. "

  11. "These days come and go, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away. "

    Ralph Waldo Emerson
  12. "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. "

  13. "A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us. "

  14. "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, of the merchants a merchant. "

  15. "All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. "

  16. "Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path. "

  17. "When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it. "

  18. "The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it. "

  19. "Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. "

  20. "To fill the hour that is happiness. "

  21. "The only way to have a friend is to be one. "

  22. "Every hero becomes a bore at last. "

  23. "What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not been discovered. "

  24. "There are always two parties; the establishment and the movement. "

  25. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. "

  26. "Let us treat men and women well; treat them as if they were real. Perhaps they are. "

  27. "To be great is to be misunderstood. "

  28. "We boil at different degrees. "

  29. "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."

  30. "Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them. "

  31. "What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. "

  32. "There is properly no history; only biography. "

  33. "There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. "

  34. "Make yourself necessary to someone."

  35. "Hitch your wagon to a star. "

  36. "Art is a jealous mistress. "

  37. "The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons. "

  38. "All sensible people are selfish, and nature is tugging at every contract to make the terms of it fair. "

  39. "In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed. "

  40. "The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one. "

  41. "A man is what he thinks about all day long. "

  42. "Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone. "

  43. "Be careful what you set your heart upon, for you will surely have it. "

  44. "Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured, From evils which never arrived! "

  45. "The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck. "

  46. "Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true. "

  47. "Be Silly. Be honest. Be kind. "

  48. "Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat we say we have had our day. "

  49. "For everything you have missed, you have gained something else. "

  50. "In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire. "

  51. "He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere. "

  52. "We aim above the mark to hit the mark. "

  53. "People only see what they are prepared to see. "

  54. "Who you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say. "

  55. "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. "

  56. "To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. "

  57. "Faith and love are apt to be spasmodic in the best minds. Men live the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which they never enter, and with their hands on the door-latch they die outside. "

  58. "To help the young soul, to add energy, inspire hope, and blow the coals into a useful flame; to redeem defeat by new thought and firm action this, though not easy, is the work of divine man. "

  59. "We judge of man's wisdom by his hope. "

  60. "Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances. "

  61. "Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow. "

  62. "When it's dark enough men see stars. "

  63. "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end."

  64. "We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. "

  65. "It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'Always do what you are afraid to do.' "

  66. "The only reward of virtue is virtue. "

  67. "The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues, the better we like him."

  68. "Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in? "

  69. "The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization."

  70. "Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. "

  71. "Men are what their mothers made them. "

  72. "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 he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship. "

  73. "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. "

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

  75. "We aim above the mark to hit the mark. "

  76. "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year. "

  77. "A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. "

  78. "Who you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say. "

  79. "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. "

  80. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. "

  81. "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius. "

  82. "We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes. "

  83. "Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful. "

  84. "The greatest gift is a portion of thyself. "

  85. "Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them. "

  86. "The only gift is a portion of thyself. "

  87. "The method of nature: who could ever analyze it? "

  88. "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. "

  89. "A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud. "

  90. "Courage consists of the power of self-recovery. "

  91. "We are the prisoners of ideas. "

  92. "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."
    -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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