Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

I am present at the sowing of the seed of the world. With a geometry of sunbeams, the soul lays the foundations of nature.

Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

Accept your genius and say what you think.

How cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew!

You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.

The soul circumscribes all things.

I like to have a person's knowledge comprehend more than one class of topics, one row of shelves. I like a person who likes to see a fine barn as well as a good tragedy.

Sorrow makes us all children again.

Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.

We wake from one dream into another dream.

Nothing external to you has any power over you.

Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions. The surest poison is time.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Earth laughs in flowers.

The secret in education lies in respecting the student.

The true doctrine of omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb.

Do what you fear and your fear will die.

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Shallow men believe in luck.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

The youth, intoxicated with his admiration of a hero, fails to see, that it is only a projection of his own soul, which he admires.

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

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

The things taught in schools & colleges are not an education but the means of education.

We do not live an equal life, but one of contrasts and patchwork; now a little joy, then a sorrow, now a sin, then a generous or brave action.

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.

When I first open my eyes upon the morning meadows and look out upon the beautiful world, I thank God I am alive.

The world looks like a multiplication-table, or a mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself.

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

Every burned book enlightens the world.

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere.

Life is a festival only to the wise.

The virtue you would like to have, assume it is already yours, appropriate it, enter into the part and live the character just as the great actor is absorbed in... the part he plays.

Every great man is unique.

Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

We judge others by their actions but we judge ourselves by our intensions.

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.

No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing.

You are constantly invited to be what you are.

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.

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

Not in his goals but in his transitions, man is great.

What you do thunders above your head so loudly, I cannot hear the words you speak.