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Ralph Waldo Emerson
409 quotes
“He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Method of Nature (1841), p. 25
“I fancy I need more than another to speak (rather than write), with such a formidable tendency to the lapidary style. I build my house of boulders.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Thomas Carlyle (30 October 1841)
“Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Walter Savage Landor", from The Dial, xii (1841)
“Literature is the effort of man to indemnify himself for the wrongs of his condition.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Walter Savage Landor", from The Dial, xii (1841)
“Self-reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1854 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Fugitive Slave Law, a lecture in NYC (March 7, 1854)
“Slavery is disheartening; but Nature is not so helpless but it can rid itself of every last wrong. But the spasms of nature are centuries and ages and will tax the faith of short-lived men. Slowly, slowly the Avenger comes, but comes surely. The proverbs of the nations affirm these delays, but affirm the arrival. They say, "God may consent, but not forever." The delay of the Divine Justice — this was the meaning and soul of the Greek Tragedy, — this was the soul of their religion.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1854 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Fugitive Slave Law, a lecture in NYC (March 7, 1854)
“If the colleges were better, if they ... had the power of imparting valuable thought, creative principles, truths which become powers, thoughts which become talents, — if they could cause that a mind not profound should become profound, — we should all rush to their gates: instead of contriving inducements to draw students, you would need to set policy at the gates to keep order in the in-rushing multitude.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Celebration of Intellect (1861)
“Always put the best interpretation on a tenet. Why not on Christianity, wholesome, sweet, and poetic? It is the record of a pure and holy soul, humble, absolutely disinterested, a trutn-speaker, and bent on serving, teaching, and uplifting men. Christianity taught the capacity, the element, to Jove the All-perfect without a stingy bargain for personal happiness. It taught that to love him was happiness,—to love him in other’s virtues.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The clergy are as like as peas.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Preacher", in The Index: A Weekly Paper (Feb. 5, 1880) pp. 62–3. Originally written as a parlor-lecture to some Divinity students, in 1867; afterwards enlarged from earlier writings, and read in its present form at …
“Only the great generalizations survive. The sharp words of the Declaration of Independence, lampooned then and since as 'glittering generalities,' have turned out blazing ubiquities that will burn forever and ever.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a lecture on Books given in the Fraternity Course in Boston in 1864; the quoted phrase 'glittering generalities' had been used by Rufus Choate to describe the declaration of the rights of man in the Preamble to the…
“A mollusk is a cheap edition [of man] with a suppression of the costlier illustrations, designed for dingy circulation, for shelving in an oyster-bank or among the seaweed.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1870 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Power and Laws of Thought (c. 1870)
“Poetry teaches the enormous force of a few words, and, in proportion to the inspiration, checks loquacity.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1874 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Parnassus (1874) Preface
“There are two classes of poets — the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1874 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Parnassus (1874) Preface
“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Fortune of the Republic (1878)
“We are never without a pilot. When we know not how to steer, and dare not hoist a sail, we can drift. The current knows the way, though we do not. The ship of heaven guides itself, and will not accept a wooden rudder.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Sovereignty of Ethics", in The North America Review, no. 262 (May–June 1878) p. 407
“To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1822 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: December 20, 1822
“When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1824 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: December 10, 1824
“The cup of life is not so shallow That we have drained the best That all the wine at once we swallow And lees make all the rest.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1827 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1827
“There is a freemasonry among the dull by which they recognize and are sociable with the dull, as surely as a correspondent tact in men of genius.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1827 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1827
“The Religion that is afraid of science dishonours God and commits suicide. It acknowledges that it is not equal to the whole of truth, that it legislates, tyrannizes over a village of God's empires but is not the immutable universal law. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion and making way for truth.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: March 4, 1831
“A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: June 20, 1831
“Everything intercepts us from ourselves.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1833 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1833
“No man can have society upon his own terms. If he seeks it, he must serve it too.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1833 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1833
“Four snakes gliding up and down a hollow for no purpose that I could see — not to eat, not for love, but only gliding.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1834 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: April 11, 1834
“We are always getting ready to live, but never living.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1834 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: April 12, 1834
“Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1836 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1836
“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1838 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: November 8, 1838
“I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: June 27, 1839
“Children are all foreigners.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: September 25, 1839
“Man exists for his own sake and not to add a laborer to the state.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: November 15, 1839
“He needs no library, for he has not done thinking; no church, for he is himself a prophet; no statute book, for he hath the Lawgiver; no money, for he is value itself; no road, for he is at home where he is.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: December 26, 1839
“The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1839
“How we hate this solemn Ego that accompanies the learned, like a double, wherever he goes.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1839
“A good indignation brings out all one's powers.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1841
“People say law but they mean wealth.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1841
“People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with bad.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1841
“You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: October 1842
“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: November 11, 1842
“The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1843 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: May 25, 1843
“If I made laws for Shakers or a school, I should gazette every Saturday all the words they were wont to use in reporting religious experience, as "spiritual life," "God," "soul," "cross," etc., and if they could not find new ones next week, they might remain silent.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1844 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: June 15, 1844
“Poetry must be new as foam, and as old as the rock.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: March 1845
“It is easy to live for others; everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: May 3, 1845
“I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Gita. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1848 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: October 1, 1848
“Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1849 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: May 1849
“Blessed are those who have no talent!”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: February 1850
“The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtesan.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1778 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: February 12, 1851; cf. the remark of John Wilkes about Samuel Johnson, "Liberty is as ridiculous in his mouth as Religion in mine" (20 March 1778), quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson (1791)
“I trust a good deal to common fame, as we all must. If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1855 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: February 1855
“The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1855 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: July 1855
“All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1855 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1855
“The book written against fame and learning has the author's name on the title-page.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1857 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1857