Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.

Fashion understands itself; good-breeding and personal superiority of whatever country readily fraternize with those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have distinguished themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their tournure.

The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.

I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.

The soul lets no man go without some visitations and holy-days of a diviner presence.

A state of war or anarchy, in which law has little force, is so far valuable, that it puts every man on trial. The man of principle is known as such, and even in the fury of faction is respected.

If in the least particular, one could derange the order of nature, who would accept the gift of life?

Successful people live well, laugh often, and love much. They've filled a niche and accomplished tasks so as to leave the world better than they found it, while looking for the best in others, and giving the best they have.

If there be any man who thinks the ruin of a race of men a small matter, compared with the last decoration and completions of hisown comfort,--who would not so much as part with his ice- cream, to save them from rapine and manacles, I think I must not hesitate to satisfy that man that also his cream and vanilla are safer and cheaper by placing the negro nation on a fair footing than by robbing them.

Any relation to the land, the habit of tilling it, or mining it, or even hunting on it, generates the feeling of patriotism. He who keeps shop on it, or he who merely uses it as a support to his desk and ledger, or to his manufactory, values it less.

Power obeys reality, and not appearances; power is according to quality, and not quantity.

Every mind is different; and the more it is unfolded, the more pronounced is that difference.

There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we must obey.

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.

Evermore in the world is this marvelous balance of beauty and disgust, magnificence and rats.

Self-trust is the first secret of success.

You need not fear to handle the truth roughly. She is no invalid.

Among provocative, the next best thing to good preaching is bad preaching.

In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods we return to reason and faith.

Many times the reading of a book has made the future of a man.

What a benefit would the American government, not yet relieved of its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city, village and hamlet in the States, if it would tax whiskey and rum almost to the point of prohibition! Was it Bonaparte who said that he found vices very good patriots? "He got five millions from the love of brandy, and he should be glad to know which of the virtues would pay him as much." Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.

Wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason.

The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. . . . They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates. Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his; - cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame.

The intelligent have a right over the ignorant; namely, the right of instructing them.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.

We commonly say that the rich man can speak the truth, can afford honesty, can afford independence of opinion and action;--and that is the theory of nobility. But it is the rich man in a true sense, that is to say, not the man of large income and large expenditure, but solely the man whose outlay is less than his income and is steadily kept so.

We can see well into the past; we can guess shrewdly into the future, but that which is rolled up and muffled in impenetrable folds is today.

It is not the irregular hours or irregular diet that makes the romantic life.

It is vain to keep a secret from one who has a right to know it. It will tell itself.

Don't ever give up on something or someone that you can't go a full day without thinking about.

The eye obeys exactly the action of the mind.

I like a man who likes to see a fine barn as well as a good tragedy.

I honor health as the first muse, and sleep as the condition of health. Sleep benefits mainly by the sound health it produces; incidentally also by dreams, into whose farrago a divine lesson is sometimes slipped.

Insist on yourself. Never imitate.

A true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the center of things.

But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation.

Every man is as lazy as he dares to be.

I do not wish to remove from my present prison to a prison a little larger. I wish to break all prisons.

Perhaps it is the lowest of the qualities of an orator, but it is, on so many occasions, of chief importance,--a certain robust and radiant physical health; or--shall I say?--great volumes of animal heat.

Never lose an opportunity to see anything that is beautiful. It is God's handwriting a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower.

The hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will, but pleasantly, and, as it were, merrily, he advancesto his own music, alike in frightful alarms and in the tipsy mirth of universal dissoluteness.

No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, there can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.

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

The sun shines today also.

Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.

Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman - repose in energy. The Greek battle pieces are calm; the heroes, in whatever violent actions engaged, retain a serene aspect.

Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of water; in male and female; in the equation of quantity and quality; in the fluids of the animal body; in the systole an

Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.