Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Time is indeed the theater and seat of illusions; nothing is so ductile and elastic. The mind stretches an hour to a century, and dwarfs an age to an hour.

I once heard a preacher who sorely tempted me to go to church no more.

We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates.

Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie-for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance-will instantly vitiate the effect.

Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into ceremonies and escapes.

Between cultivated minds the first interview is the best.

The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not need plenty, and can very well abide its loss.

We postpone our literary work until we have more ripeness and skill to write, and we one day discover that our literary talent wasa youthful effervescence which we have now lost.

Enthusiasm is the height of man; it is the passing from the human to the divine.

I fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all points to the real and wholesome success. One adores public opinion, the other, private opinion; one, fame, the other, desert; one, feats, the other, humility; one, lucre, the other, love; one, monopoly, and the other, hospitality of mind.

Dreams and beasts are two keys by which we find out the keys of our own nature.

A man makes inferiors his superiors by heat; self control is the rule. Anger is an uncontrollable feeling that betrays what you are when you are not yourself. Anger is that powerful internal force that blows out the light of reason. Know this to be the enemy: it is anger, born of desire.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Give all to love; Obey thy heart.

Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.

Language is a city, to the building of which every human being brought a stone; yet he is no more to be credited with the grand result than the acaleph which adds a cell to the coral reef which is the basis of the continent.

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no person can sincerely try to help another without helping him or herself. Serve and you shall be served. If you love and serve people, you cannot, by any hiding or stratagem, escape the remuneration.

The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance.

If a man's eye is on the Eternal, his intellect will grow.

The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible.

The search after the great men is the dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of manhood.

Everything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight lines.

Fame is proof that the people are gullible.

An artist spends himself like the crayon in his hand, till he is all gone.

But what is classification but the perceiving that these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law which is also the law of the human mind?

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.

The amount of a man's wealth consists in the number of things he can do without.

Government has been a fossil: it should be a plant.

The miracles of genius always rest on profound convictions which refuse to be analyzed.

Nothing can bring you happiness but yourself especially how you choose to think about your situation.

We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe; can we not take the leap?

A good symbol is the best argument, and is a missionary to persuade thousands.

Knowledge exists to be imparted.

When we can't piece together the puzzle of our own lives, remember the best view of a puzzle is from above. Let Him help put you together.

Self trust is the essence of heroism.

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.

How can we speak of the action of the mind under any divisions, as of its knowledge, of its ethics, of its works, and so forth, since it melts will into perception, knowledge into act? Each becomes the other. Itself alone is.

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol and an audience is electrified.

The religion of England is part of good-breeding. When you see on the continent the well-dressed Englishman come into his ambassador's chapel and put his face for silent prayer into his smooth-brushed hat, you cannot help feeling how much national pride prays with him, and the religion of a gentleman.

Senators and presidents have climbed so high with pain enough, not because they think the place specially agreeable, but as an apology for real worth, and to vindicate their manhood in our eyes. This conspicuous chair is their compensation to themselves for being of a poor, cold, hard nature.

As much wisdom may be expended on a private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom may be drawn from it.

The philosophy of waiting is sustained by all the oracles of the universe.

Every ship that comes to America got its chart from Columbus.

The vulgar call good fortune that which really is produced by the calculations of genius.

We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history.

It is not what talents or genius a man has, but how he is to his talents, that constitutes friendship and character. The man thatstands by himself, the universe stands by him also.

Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. The mind does not create what it perceives, anymore than the eye creates the rose.

For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem.