Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

The virtue of books is to be readable.

Go face the fire at sea, or the cholera in your friend's house, or the burglar in your own, or what danger lies in the way of duty, knowing you are guarded by the cherubim of Destiny. If you believe in Fate to your harm, believe it, at least, for your good.

Greek architecture is the flowering of geometry.

In old Egypt, it was established law, that the vote of a prophet be reckoned equal to a hundred hands. I think it was much under-estimated.

All mankind love a lover.

Courage is temperamental, scientific, ideal.

It is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts.

When a man thinks happily, he finds no foot-track in the field he traverses. All spontaneous thought is irrespective of all else.

We pass for what we are.

We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.

Blame is safer than praise

Lawyers are a prudent race though not very fond of liberty.

What is originality? It is being one's self, and reporting accurately what we see and are.

The secret is the answer to all that has been, all that is, and all that will ever be.

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. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.

Broader and deeper we must write our annals, from an ethical reformation, from an influx of the ever new, ever sanative conscience, if we would trulier express our central and wide-related nature, instead of this old chronology of selfishness and pride to which we have too long lent our eyes. Already that day exists for us, shines in on us at unawares, but the path of science and of letters is not the way into nature. The idiot, the Indian, the child, and unschooled farmer's boy, stand nearer to the light by which nature is to be read, than the dissector or the antiquary.

All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effiminated by position of nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive.

What school, college, or lecture bring men depends on what men bring to carry it home in.

There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is.

Conversation is our account of ourselves...Conversation is the vent of character as well as thoughts...It is the laboratory of the student.

Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.

The uses of travel are occasional, and short; but the best fruit it finds, when it finds it, is conversation; and this is a main function of life.

A feeble man can see the farms that are fenced and tilled, the houses that are built. The strong man sees the possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates as fast as the sun breeds clouds.

It is dainty to be sick if you have leisure and convenience for it.

I have only one doctrine, the infinitude of the private man.

We are imprisoned in life in the company of persons powerfully unlike us.

One must be an inventor to read well.

The visible heavens and earth sympathize with Jesus.

He cumbers himself never about consequences, about interests; he gives an independent, genuine verdict. You must court him: he does not court you. But the man is, as it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness.

Fear is cruel and mean. The political reigns of terror have been reigns of madness and malignity,--a total perversion of opinion;society is upside down, and its best men are thought too bad to live.

The peace of the man who has forsworn the use of the bullet seems to me not quite peace, but a canting impotence.

If you would serve your brother it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. Be true to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age.

The eye of prudence may never shut.

There is no event greater in life than the appearance of new persons about our hearth, except it be the progress of the characterwhich draws them.

The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

Wise cultivated, genial conversation is the last flower of civilization, and the best result which life has to offer us,--a cup for gods, which has no repentance. Conversation is our account of ourselves. All we have, all we can, all we know, is brought into play, and as the reproduction in finer form, of all our havings.

A good indignation makes an excellent speech.

All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.

The unbelief of the age is attested by the loud condemnation of trifles.

For beauty is God's handwriting...A nd, thank God for it as a cup of His blessing.

It is the delight of vulgar talent to dazzle and to bind the beholder. But true genius seeks to defend us from itself. True geniuswill not impoverish, but will liberate, and add new sense. If a wise man should appear in our village, he would create, in those who conversed with him, a new consciousness of wealth, by opening their eyes to unobserved advantages; he would establish a sense of immovable equality, calm us with assurances that we could not be cheated; as every one would discern the checks and guarantees of condition.

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

The first questions are always to be asked, and the wisest doctor is gravelled by the inquisitiveness of a child.

Adult males are what their moms designed them.

Cultivate an attitude of gratitude, of giving and forgiving. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man.

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

Our thinking is a pious reception.