Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

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

 

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
 

For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 


It is not length of life, but depth of life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



 
Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 
Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.
Ralph Waldo Emerson





Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



 
A man is what he thinks about all day long.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



 
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




Always do what you are afraid to do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



 

Every artist was first an amateur.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

All mankind love a lover.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



 

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

A great man is always willing to be little.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 


Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

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

 


















What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

Men are what their mothers made them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 


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

 

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

 

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




Earth laughs in flowers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




We must be our own before we can be another's.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 








Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson





No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson





Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 


A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



 

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



 

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force - that thoughts rule the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.
Ralph Waldo Emerson





Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

A good indignation brings out all one's powers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.
Ralph Waldo Emerson





In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson





Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Ralph Waldo Emerson





We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

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 him no peace.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



 

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson





A man is a method, a progressive arrangement; a selecting principle, gathering his like to him; wherever he goes.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.
Ralph Waldo Emerson






Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



Every experiment, by multitudes or by individuals, that has a sensual and selfish aim, will fail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




It is my desire, in the office of a Christian minister, to do nothing which I cannot do with my whole heart. Having said this, I have said all.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

 

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Money often costs too much.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 


The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



What you are comes to you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



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



Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




God enters by a private door into every individual.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

The first wealth is health.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


 

A man in debt is so far a slave.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



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

 

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



The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson



Cause and effect are two sides of one fact.
Ralph Waldo Emerson


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

 

Every wall is a door.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson