- Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Life is to be lived, not controlled.

Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.

The escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are; and love of what is simple and beautiful; independence, and cheerful relation, these are the essentials.

We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner; must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly.

Neither is a dictionary a bad book to read. There is no can't in it, no excess of explanation, and it is full of suggestion, the raw material of possible poems and histories.

For a great nature, it is a happiness to escape a religious training; religion of character is so apt to be invaded.

To believe in luck, if it were not a solecism so to use the word believe, is skepticism.

Experience is the only teacher, and we get his lesson indifferently in any school.

The finished man of the world must eat of every apple once.

Moral qualities rule the world, but at short distances the senses are despotic.

A part of fate is the freedom of man. Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in his soul.

There is a genius of a nation, which is not to be found in the numerical citizens, but which characterizes the society.

Many a profound genius, I suppose, who fills the world with fame of his exploding renowned errors, is yet everyday posed and baffled by trivial questions at his own supper table.

Goodness that preaches undoes itself.

Health is the first muse, comprising the magical benefits of air, landscape, and bodily exercise on the mind.

[A]s if life were a thunder-storm wherein you can see by a flash the horizon, and then cannot see your hand.

With most men, scarce a link of memory holds yesterday and to-day together.

Ah Fate, cannot a man Be wise without a beard? East, West, from Beer to Dan, Say, was it never heard That wisdom might in youth be gotten, Or wit be ripe before 't was rotten?

Is all literature eavesdropping, and all art Chinese imitation? our life a custom, and our body borrowed, like a beggar’s dinner, from a hundred charities?

When a man meets his make, society begins.

Thanks to the morning light, Thanks to the foaming sea, To the uplands of New Hampshire, To the green-haired forest free.

The attraction and superiority of California are in its days. It has better days & more of them, than any other country.

He is great who confers the most benefits.

We are ashamed of our thoughts and often see them brought forth by others.

It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence, whether a man be behind it or no.

It depends little on the object, much on the mood, in art.

The Yankee is one who, if he once gets his teeth set on a thing, all creation can't make him let go.

The aid we can give each other is only incidental, lateral, and sympathetic.

Do not speak of God much. After a very little conversation on the highest nature, thought deserts us and we run into formalism.

God is our name for the last generalization to which we can arrive.

I am a part and parcel of God.

The young man reveres men of genius, because, to speak truly, they are more himself than he is.

There is no history; only biography.

In a tavern everybody puts on airs except the landlord.

How much finer things are in composition than alone.

Every roof is agreeable to the eye, until it is lifted; then we find tragedy and moaning women, and hard-eyed husbands.

Let a man behave in his own house as a guest.

Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay, Tho' her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive, Heartily know, When half-gods go, The gods arrive.

Five minutes of today are worth as much to me, as five minutes in the next millennium. Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today.

I DO not count the hours I spend In wandering by the sea; The forest is my loyal friend, Like God it useth me.

The craft of the merchant is this bringing a thing where it abounds to where it is costly.

The regular course of studies, the years of academical and professional education, have not yielded me better facts than some idle books under the bench at the Latin School.

We seek our friend not sacredly, but with an adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves.

Old age brings along with its uglinesses the comfort that you will soon be out of it, - which ought to be a substantial relief to such discontented pendulums as we are.

Cities of mortals woe-begone Fantastic care derides, But in the serious landscape lone Stern benefit abides.

Whenever the average intellect of the clergy declines in the balance with the average intellect of the people the churches will be shut up and a new order of things [will] begin.

I will not live out of me I will not see with others' eyes My good is good, my evil ill I would be free.

The exercise of all the senses is as intense pleasure, as anyone will find, who recovers the use of one after being deprived of it.

When the vain speaker has sat down, and the people say 'what a good speech,' it still takes an ounce to balance an ounce.

The restraining grace of common sense is the mark of all valid minds.