- Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Life wastes itself whilst we are preparing to live.

Circumstance does not make the man. Circumstance reveals man to himself.

Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal.

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

Freedom has nothing to do with having the right to vote for your oppressor; freedom is not having any form of oppression.

Do the thing and you will have the power.

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

To fill the hour──that is happiness.

Beauty without expression is boring.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

Doing well is the result of doing good. That's what capitalism is all about.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.

When it is dark enough, men see the stars.

Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.

The forest waves, the morning breaks, The pastures sleep, ripple the lakes, Leaves twinkle, flowers like persons be And life pulsates in rock or tree.

It is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates all men.

There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.

Being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of tranquillity that religion is powerless to bestow.

Be brave enough to do the loving thing.

The mark of a man of the world is absence of pretension.

Cupid is a casuist, a mystic, and a cabalist,-- Can your lurking thought surprise, And interpret your device, . . . . All things wait for and divine him,-- How shall I dare to malign him?

Heaven is large, and affords space for all modes of love and fortitude.

He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public.

The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness.

So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person's genius is confined to a very few hours.

A strenuous soul hates cheap success.

When you have worn out yourshoes, the strength of the shoe leather has passed into the fiber ofyour body. I measure your health by the number of shoes and hats andclothes you have worn out.

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

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.

Of course, money will do after its kind, and will steadily work to unspiritualize and unchurch the people to whom it was bequeathed.

The best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere people.

Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house, a world; and beyond its world a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you: build, therefore, your own world.

In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil.

We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.

The task ahead of us is never as great as the power behind us.

It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have it, it requires ten times as much skill to keep it.

A nation, like a tree, does not thrive well till it is engraffed with a foreign stock.

Keep your friendships in repair.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed

If you believe in the soul, do not clutch at sensual sweetness before it is ripe on the slow tree of cause and effect.

Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.

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

Whatever it is, it's better in the wind.

Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say we have had our day.

Tis curious that we only believe as deeply as we live.

The highest compact we can make with our fellow is - "Let there be truth between us two forevermore."

Genius is saying what is in your heart, because it's in everyone's heart.