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Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (showing 1-30 of 1,404)

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest
accomplishment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: accomplishment, attributed-no-source, be-yourself, conformity, individuality
60618 likes
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For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: happiness
30295 likes
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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities
no doubt 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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: life, regrets
16821 likes
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It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson in His Journals
tags: friends
13282 likes
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What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
9808 likes
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Always do what you are afraid to do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
7476 likes
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Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational, life
6524 likes
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Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3631 likes
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What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3485 likes
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I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have
made me.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: books, reading, we-are-what-we-eat, we-are-what-we-read, you-are-what-you-eat, you-are-what-
you-read
3412 likes
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When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: dark, stars
3350 likes
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Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus,
and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took
flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance
tags: greatness
3197 likes
Like
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to
have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: helping-others, make-a-difference, purpose, purpose-of-life
3131 likes
Like
The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of
companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else
believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: friendship
2870 likes
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Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have
been to you like the blast of a trumpet.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: spirituality
2769 likes
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All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: belief, experience, faith, judging-from-experience, religion, unseen
2395 likes
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The earth laughs in flowers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: flowers, laughter
2220 likes
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It is not the length of life, but the depth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: life
2177 likes
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Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to
tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics
are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage
that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: courage, inspirational
2167 likes
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Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: dreams
2165 likes
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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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Complete Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: essay, inspirational, lecture, nonfiction, philosophy, self-reliance, social-
commentary,transcendentalism
2081 likes
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The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: destiny, self-determination
2055 likes
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Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: advice-for-daily-living, inspirational, live-in-the-moment, optimism, wonder
1901 likes
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Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: determination, fate
1713 likes
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Life is a journey, not a destination.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: live-in-the-moment
1671 likes
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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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: gratitude
1591 likes
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Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent
to you. You have to win it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: motivational, work
1569 likes
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Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: nature, outdoors
1508 likes
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Make the most of yourself....for that is all there is of you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: be-yourself, inspirational, self-improvement
1406 likes
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Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
1300 likes
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Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (showing 31-60 of 1,404)

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: books, intelligence, wisdom
1239 likes
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Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1144 likes
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Be not the slave of your own past - plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you
shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall
explain and overlook the old.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: beauty, power
1089 likes
Like
A great man is always willing to be little.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: confidence, greatness, humbleness, humility, modesty, size
1083 likes
Like
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more
experiments you make the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, with Annotations -
1841-1844
tags: life, risk-taking, timidity
1018 likes
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You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: kindness
1017 likes
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Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson's Essays
tags: beauty, travel
957 likes
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The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: comradery, friends, frienship
941 likes
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Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Collected Poems and Translations
tags: carpe-diem, hope, new-day, optimism
941 likes
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Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: encouragement, leadership
884 likes
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Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: causality, causation, cause-and-effect, chance, darwinism, inspirational, kalam-cosmological-
argument,luck, naturalism, necessity, serendipity
876 likes
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A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: brave, inspirational
829 likes
Like
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last
in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of
dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with
the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series
tags: friends, friendship, trust
812 likes
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Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: peace
749 likes
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Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will
never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: leisure, solitude
721 likes
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People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: character, humanity
708 likes
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Every artist was first an amateur.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: artist, skill, skills, talent, talents
685 likes
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Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am
contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson in His Journals
tags: contradiction, correcting, correction, criticism, inspirational, opinions, paranoia
627 likes
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To be great is to be misunderstood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
tags: greatness
609 likes
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You become what you think about all day long.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational, obsession
603 likes
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Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
tags: integrity, mind
599 likes
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The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: ecology, inspirational-quotes, nature, trees
599 likes
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Envy is ignorance,
Imitation is Suicide.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
tags: inspirational
598 likes
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It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: integrity, self-actualization, self-determination
546 likes
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Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
543 likes
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When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can
know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series
tags: friendship, reliability
539 likes
Like
The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
531 likes
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Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: happiness
513 likes
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Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do
better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are
great, not what you were never made for.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
tags: inspirational
509 likes
Like
The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you
have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes
from within, not from without.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (showing 61-90 of 1,404)

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: life, life-experience
488 likes
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Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
482 likes
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There is creative reading as well as creative writing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: creativity, enlightenment, learning, reading, writing
473 likes
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers
and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself
with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-
morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. 'Ah, so you
shall be sure to be misunderstood.' Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was
misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and
every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
tags: consistency, greatness, misunderstood
451 likes
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Nothing external to you has any power over you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: ataraxy, inner-peace
446 likes
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In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
426 likes
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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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Selected Essays
tags: astronomy, beauty, heavens, nature, night, night-sky, religion, sky, stars
409 likes
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Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an
eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspiration
405 likes
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I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: quotes
392 likes
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Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
tags: self-confidence, self-reliance, self-trust, trust
391 likes
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The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: appreciation, wisdom, wonder
368 likes
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Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: nature-books
362 likes
Like
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance;
that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that 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. The power which resides in him is new
in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance
tags: inspirational
354 likes
Like
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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
335 likes
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Let us be silent, that we may hear the whisper of God.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: spiritual
329 likes
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The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: decoration, friends, home, homemaking, house, visitors
327 likes
Like
This is my wish for you: Comfort on difficult days, smiles when sadness intrudes, rainbows to follow
the clouds, laughter to kiss your lips, sunsets to warm your heart, hugs when spirits sag, beauty for
your eyes to see, friendships to brighten your being, faith so that you can believe, confidence for
when you doubt, courage to know yourself, patience to accept the truth, Love to complete your life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
298 likes
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Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: manners
292 likes
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In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in
paper and leathern boxes.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: library-books
288 likes
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People only see what they are prepared to see.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
285 likes
Like
For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you
lose something else.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
285 likes
Like
Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods like a string
of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world
their own hue. . . .
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: art, emotion, experience, illusion, perception
283 likes
Like
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of
principles.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson on Self Reliance
tags: self-reliance
279 likes
Like
Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: faith, inspiration, life, sorrow, wisdom, worry
277 likes
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Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: fear
274 likes
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All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: originality
269 likes
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I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If
you can love me for what I am, we shall be happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you
should. I must be myself. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is
holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart
appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical
attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek
my own. I do this not selfishly but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all mens,
however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love
what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth it will bring us out safe at
last.But so may you give these friends pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save
their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the
region of absolute truth; then will they justify me and do the same thing.
The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere
antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the
law of consciousness abides.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
tags: ralph-waldo-emerson
261 likes
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You are constantly invited to be what you are.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: self-reliance
261 likes
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
tags: consistency, foolish, little-minds, philosophers
261 likes
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Some books leave us free and some books make us free.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (showing 91-120 of 1,404)

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: fav-common-sense
245 likes
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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
tags: love
231 likes
Like
You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful
distance of miles, there is complicity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: animal-cruelty, diet, ethical, ethics, food, slaughterhouse, vegan, veganism, vegetarian, vegeta
rianism
231 likes
Like
Life is a series of surprises and would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational, life
221 likes
Like
Love, and you shall be loved.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: love
217 likes
Like
Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole
life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half
possession.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: individuality, self-expression, uniqueness
211 likes
Like
None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this
whisper which is heard by him alone.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational, self-determination, self-expression
207 likes
Like
Beauty without expression is boring.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: beauty
206 likes
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We are always getting ready to live but never living.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
205 likes
Like
Fear always springs
from ignorance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: fear, ignorance
196 likes
Like
Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed. When friendships are real,
they are not glass threads or frost work but the solidest things we know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: friendship
193 likes
Like
Whatever course you decide upon there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are
always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course
of action and follow it to an end requires....courage.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: courage
192 likes
Like
When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end,
your're the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
187 likes
Like
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
tags: peace, self-reliance
183 likes
Like
The years teach much the days never know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: time
182 likes
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Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: courage, enjoy-life, hope, perseverance
182 likes
Like
The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil. It is not for you to choose what he shall know,
what he shall do. It is chosen and foreordained and he only holds the key to his own secret.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: education, initiative, self-education
181 likes
Like
Be good to your work, your word, and your friend.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: be-good, integrity
180 likes
Like
What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in
actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.
It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than
you know it. 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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: mindfulness, solitude
175 likes
Like
Riding a horse is not a gentle hobby, to be picked up and laid down like a game of solitaire. It is a
grand passion. It seizes a person whole and once it has done so, he/she will have to accept that his
life will be radically changed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: horse-riding
173 likes
Like
The wise man in the storm prays God not for safety from danger but for deliverance from fear.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: prayer
166 likes
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Every wall is a door.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
166 likes
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What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: possibilities
165 likes
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Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: challenges, difficulty, inspirational, learning, science, value
164 likes
Like
Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: fiction, on-fiction, reality, revelation, truth
161 likes
Like
A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: children
161 likes
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For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: gratitude
159 likes
Like
We acquire the strength we have overcome.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: strength
158 likes
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Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: greatness, simplicity
154 likes
Like
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Ralph Waldo Emerson > Quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (showing 121-150 of 1,404)

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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Selected Essays
tags: nature
153 likes
Like
There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in
good clothes.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: dogs, fashion, humor, respect
150 likes
Like
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
tags: art, creativity, different, individuality, non-conformist
149 likes
Like
I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: friends
147 likes
Like
Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: beauty, nature
146 likes
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Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: death, death-and-dying, loss
146 likes
Like
To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to leave the world a better place,
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: life-and-living
145 likes
Like
In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its
satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: books, civilization, civilized, emerson, quote, reading
145 likes
Like
Imitation is suicide.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: be-yourself, creativity, life
143 likes
Like
We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation -rooms, for ten or
fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays Including Essays, First & Second Series, English
Traits, Nature & Considerations by the Way
tags: 1844, education, education-system, knowledge
140 likes
Like
Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with
your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
138 likes
Like
Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your
might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be
enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved
without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
137 likes
Like
Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: dreams, inspirational
137 likes
Like
I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there
beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: travel
135 likes
Like
Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative
force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an
extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
tags: individualism, self-reliance, self-trust
135 likes
Like
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: compassion
135 likes
Like
Beware what you set your heart upon. For it surely shall be yours.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
134 likes
Like
What I need is someone who will make me do what I can.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
133 likes
Like
My life is not an apology, but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should
be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
131 likes
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Trust instinct to the end, even though you can give no reason.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: instinct
130 likes
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The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life: A Philosophical Reading
tags: hypocrisy
129 likes
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It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without
helping himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
129 likes
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the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of
solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
125 likes
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Life consists of what man is thinking about all day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
125 likes
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Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard
words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
tags: fearlessness, honesty, speaking-your-mind
123 likes
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Scatter joy!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: joy
122 likes
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There are books . . . which rank in our life with parents and lovers and passionate experiences.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: passion-for-books
121 likes
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The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: satire
120 likes
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The Artist always has the masters in his eyes.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: ambition, art, artist, eyes, love, master, work
119 likes
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The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson > Quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (showing 151-180 of 1,404)

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: fear, inspirational, self-confidence
115 likes
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Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many
colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own
focus.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: life
114 likes
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Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims
tags: poetry, sentiment, tea
110 likes
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The ancestor of every action is a thought
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: actions-inspirational-action, ancestor, thoughts
109 likes
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The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: confidence, courage, courage-to-be-oneself, independent-thought, lightning, lightning-rod, prid
e,protection, self-belief, self-determination, self-esteem, self-protection, self-reliance-independence
109 likes
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It is a happy talent to know how to play.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: play
109 likes
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In order for one to learn the important lessons of life, one must first overcome a fear each day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
109 likes
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The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
tags: happiness, lessons, nature, worship
108 likes
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I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead
institutions.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
tags: appearances, institutions, labels, values
107 likes
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Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a
character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
104 likes
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What is success?
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 the
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!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
104 likes
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Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become
what he should be.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
103 likes
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Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy
with the last honesty and truth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: truth
100 likes
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The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going
Ralph Waldo Emerson
98 likes
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Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: colleges, genius, home-schooling, humor, school
98 likes
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Tis the good reader that makes the good book.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: books
98 likes
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I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
tags: church, religion
94 likes
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The reward of a thing well done is having done it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
94 likes
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The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: religion
93 likes
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I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their
motives.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
93 likes
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One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your
hear that every day is the best day of the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
91 likes
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If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
89 likes
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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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: life
87 likes
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We boil at different degrees.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
86 likes
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To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all
men that is genius.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
86 likes
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The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other;
who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and
earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man,
in spite of real sorrows...
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Walking
tags: nature
85 likes
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Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
85 likes
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The world belongs to the energetic.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
84 likes
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Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I
dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my
trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is
the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces.
I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me
wherever I go.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: travel
83 likes
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In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain
alienated majesty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson > Quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (showing 181-210 of 1,404)

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more
experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or
torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be
so afraid of a tumble.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
82 likes
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There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance;
that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that 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. The power which resides in him is new
in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none.
This sculpture in the memory is not without prestablishcd harmony. The eye was placed where one
ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are
ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate
and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by
cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but
what he has said or done otherwise shall give hint no peace. It is a deliverance which does not
deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
tags: self-reliance
82 likes
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Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
82 likes
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Be an opener of doors
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: assistance, doors, passion, success
82 likes
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The First wealth is health.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: health
82 likes
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Thou art to me a delicious torment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
81 likes
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Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: character, emerson, intellect
81 likes
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Money often costs too much
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: cost, money
80 likes
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There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain
around us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: joy
78 likes
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To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not
solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look
at the stars.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Selected Essays
tags: nature
77 likes
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Your actions speak so loudly, I can not hear what you are saying.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
75 likes
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Hitch your wagon to a star.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
75 likes
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At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend,
client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,'Come out
unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I
give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: distraction, frustration, perspective, wisdom
74 likes
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Ne te quaesiveris extra." (Do not seek for things outside of yourself)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
73 likes
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Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the
world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
73 likes
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Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: abandonment, friends, loneliness, visiting
72 likes
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There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: information-age, information-overload, social-media
72 likes
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Do the thing and you will have the power.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: action, do-it, power, you-can-do-it
71 likes
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Never lose an opportunity for seeing something beautiful for beauty is God s handwriting.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
70 likes
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We are wiser than we know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspiration
70 likes
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A man is known by the books he reads.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: individuality
70 likes
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A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from
within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his
thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come
back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
69 likes
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A friend may be nature's most magnificent creation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: friends
69 likes
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Nature and books belong to all who see them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: nature-books
66 likes
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Greatness is a property for which no man can receive credit too soon; it must be possessed long
before it is acknowledged.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance
tags: greatness
66 likes
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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
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: attraction, man, standard, woman
65 likes
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Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not capacious? It never troubles the
sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the
reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: friendship
65 likes
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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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
64 likes
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Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem the
religious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these,
because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what
each has, and not by what each is.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
tags: greed, materialism, possessions, property, values
63 likes
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Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates
through the earth from side to side.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series

Ralph Waldo Emerson > Quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (showing 211-240 of 1,404)

As we grow old...the beauty steals inward.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: aging-well
62 likes
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Books are for nothing but to inspire
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: authors, books, writing
62 likes
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Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: transcendentalism, transcendentalists
61 likes
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The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited
with himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: society
61 likes
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To a dull mind all of nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles
with light.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
60 likes
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People do not deserve good writing, they are so pleased with bad.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: humor, writing
60 likes
Like
If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: beauty
60 likes
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I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict
it all.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
59 likes
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Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
58 likes
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Patience and fortitude conquer all things.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
58 likes
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Give me wine to wash me clean of the weather-stains of cares
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: wine
58 likes
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Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
58 likes
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Moderation in all things, especially moderation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: moderation
57 likes
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There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: food
57 likes
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Nothing can work damage to me except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me and
never am a real sufferer except by my own fault.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
56 likes
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In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life,
is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Selected Essays
tags: nature, youth
56 likes
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Love what is simple and beautiful.
These are the essentials.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Tao of Emerson the Tao of Emerson
tags: authors, emerson, kara-skye-smith, poems, poetry, quotes
55 likes
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Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think," "I am," but quotes
some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under
my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist
with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of
its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more;
in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike.
But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the
past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot
be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
tags: god, religion
55 likes
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Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem
confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakenly meant for his ear; the profit of books is
according to the sensibility of the reader; the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine,
until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: books, literature, reading, words
54 likes
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That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed,
but our power to do so is increased.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
54 likes
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Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: beauty-grace
53 likes
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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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: calling, career, career-counseling, find-your-passion, fortune, happiness, happiness-fulfillment-
desire,happiness-life, job, job-search, life-coaching, life-purpose, passionate-living, purpose, purpose
-in-life,pursue, pursue-your-passion, pursuit, pursuit-of-happiness, ralph-waldo-emerson, self-
expression, work
53 likes
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Teach that God is, not was; that He speaketh, not spake.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: spiritual
53 likes
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The only true gift is a portion of thyself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational
52 likes
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Common sense is as rare as genius.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: common-sense
52 likes
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What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
52 likes
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The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and
starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try
to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
51 likes
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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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: wisdom
51 likes
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No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily
transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong is what is
against it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
tags: inspirational, philosophy
50 likes
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Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.
Ralph Waldo Emerson