Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

As the traveler who has lost his way, throws his reins on his horse's neck, and trusts to the instinct of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through this world

God has delegated himself to a million deputies.

This knot of nature is so well tied that nobody was ever cunning enough to find the two ends.

The riddle of the age has for each a private solution.

Foolish consistencies are the hobgoblins of small minds!

If a man is at heart just, then in so far is he God; the safety of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God do enter into that man with justice.

Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it.

He decided to give up his large ambition of knowledge and action for any narrow craft or profession, aiming at a much more comprehensive calling, the art of living.

I please myself with the graces of the winter scenery, and believe that we are as much touched by it as by the genial influences of summer.

Give all to love: Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good fame, Plans, credit, and the Muse,- Nothing refuse.

The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows.

The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.

Things admit of being used as symbols, because nature is a symbol, in the whole, and in every part.

Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun.

The primary wisdom is intuition.

Life is not measured by its length, but by its depth.

As thinkers, mankind has ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness; the first class beginning to think from the data of the senses, the second class perceive that the senses are not final and say, The senses give us representations of things, but what are the things themselves, they cannot tell. The materialist insists on facts, on history, on the force of circumstances and the animal wants of man; the idealists on the power of Thought and Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on individual culture.

To say then, the majority are wicked, means no malice, no bad heart in the observer, but, simply that the majority are unripe, andhave not yet come to themselves, do not yet know their opinion.

Character is that which can do without success.

Let us learn to live coarsely, dress plainly, and lie hard. The least habit of dominion over the palate has certain good effects not easily estimated.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.

The State is a poor, good beast who means the best: it means friendly.

If you would learn to write, it is in the street you must learn it. Both for the vehicle and for the aims of fine arts, you must frequent the public square. The people, and not the college, is the writer's home. A scholar is a candle which the love and desire of all men will light.

Beware of jokes from which we go away hollow and ashamed.

I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, mettle and bottom.

...man is an analogist, and studies relations in all objects. He is placed in the center of beings, and a ray of relation passes from every other being to him. And neither can man be understood without these objects, nor these objects without man.

We estimate the wisdom of nations by seeing what they did with their surplus capital.

It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on memory alone.

A man's style is his mind's voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices.

I know and see too well, when not voluntarily blind, the speedy limits opersons called high and worthy.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.

The pleasure of eloquence is in greatest part owing often to the stimulus of the occasion which produces it- - to the magic of sympathy, which exalts the feeling of each by radiating on him the feeling of all.

There is always room for a person of force and they make room for many.

A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

No picture of life can have any veracity that does not admit the odious facts. A man's power is hooped in by a necessity, which, by many experiments, he touches on every side, until he learns its arc.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

A fly is as untamable as a hyena.

I am the owner of the sphere, Of the seven stars and the solar year, of Caesar's hand, and Plato's brain, Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakespeare's strain.

The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.

Those who listened to Lord Chatham felt that there was something finer in the man, than anything which he said.

When I walk up the piazza of Santa Croce I feel as if it were not a Florentine nor an European church but a church built by and for the human race.

The poise of a plant, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every vegetable and animal, are also demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul. All history from its highest to its trivial passages is the various record of this power.

Practice makes perfect - the sooner you start, the sooner you will be a happy nonsmoker

Sleep takes off the costume of circumstance, arms us with terrible freedom, so that every will rushes to deed. A skillful man reads his dreams for his self-knowledge; yet not the details, but the quality. What part does he play in them - a cheerful, manly part, or a poor, drivelling part? However monstrous and grotesque their apparitions, they have a substantial truth.

The wise and just man will always feel that he stands on his own feet; that he imparts strength to the state, not receives security from it; and if all went down, he and such as he would quite easily combine in a new and better constitution.

I know of no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that of tenacity of purpose.

All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature.