Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 3

He that rides his hobby gently must always give way to him that rides his hobby hard.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. . . . The force of character is cumulative.

Language is fossil poetry

Spiritual force is stronger than material force thoughts rule the world.

We take care of our health we lay up money we make our roof tight and our clothing sufficient but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting in the best property of all-friends.

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

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.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.... It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

When a man is pushed tormented defeated he has a chance to learn something he has been put on his wits on his manhood he has gained the facts learned his ignorance is cured of the insanity of conceit has got moderation and real skill.

With the past I have nothing to do nor with the future. I live now.

To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

The life of truth is cold.

What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.

Always do what you are afraid to do.

I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images, or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin.

Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise.

Nature wishes that woman should attract man, yet she often cunningly moulds into her face a little sarcasm, which seems to say, 'Yes, I am willing to attract, but to attract a little better kind of a man than any I yet behold

When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know.

Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful. This is the reason why beauty is still escaping out of all analysis. It is not yet possessed, it cannot be handled. …It instantly deserts possession, and flies to an object in the horizon. If I could put my hand on the north star, would it be as beautiful? The sea is lovely, but when we bathe in it, the beauty forsakes all the near water. For the imagination and senses cannot be gratified at the same time.

For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?

My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.

Pictures must not be too picturesque.

A day is a miniature eternity.

Over the inter glaciers,I see the summer glow,And, through the wild-piled snowdrift,The warm rosebuds below.

When we are young, we spend much time and pains in filling our note-books with all definitions of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, in the hope that, in the course of a few years, we shall have condensed into our encyclopaedia the net value of all the theories at which the world has yet arrived. But year after year our tables get no completeness, and at last we discover that our curve is a parabola, whose arcs will never meet.

Character is what can do without success

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.

A good indignation brings out all one's powers.

Beauty will not come at the call of the legislature.... It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.

I can find my biography in every fable that I read.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

Some thoughts always find us young and keep us so. Such a thought is the love of the universal and eternal beauty.

Quotation confesses inferiority.

I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.

A sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.

AH I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

Discontent is want of self-discipline it is infirmity of will.

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

Artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like bees they must put their lives into the sting they give.

Glittering generalities! They are blazing ubiquities.

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whisper of God.

The eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker but who is inwardly and desperately drunk with a certain belief.

If we are related, we shall meet. It was a tradition of the ancient world, that no metamorphosis could hide a god from a god; and there is a Greek verse which runs, "The Gods are to each other not unknown."Friends also follow the laws of divine necessity; they gravitate to each other, and cannot otherwise.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man but he is brave five minutes longer.

Does not… the ear of Handel predict the witchcraft of harmonic sound?

Pride ruined the angels.

Trust men and they will be true to you treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.