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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes



American essayist & poet


Quotes

Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
The Conduct of Life, 'Fate,' 1860
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“A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life; he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.
Society and Solitude: Works and Days, 1870
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“As soon as there is life there is danger.
Society and Solitude (1870)
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“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Self-Reliance
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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.
Self-Reliance
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“In every work of genius we see our own rejected thoughts.
Self Reliance
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“Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner.
New England Reformers, 1844
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“The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.
Natural History of Intellect (1893)
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“Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.
Letters and Social Aims: The Comic, 1876
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“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.
Letters and Social Aims: Quotation and Originality, 1876
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“Every artist was first an amateur.
Letters and Social Aims: Progress of Culture, 1876
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“Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.
Letters and Social Aims (Quotation and Originality)
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“The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
Journals, 1839
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“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.
Journals, 1824
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“Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.
Journal (May 1849)
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“Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.
Essays, First Series: Prudence, 1841
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“To be great is to be misunderstood.
An Essay on Self-Reliance
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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.
Address on The Method of Nature, 1841
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“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
(attributed)
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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; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
(attributed)
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“Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.
'Journals,' 1836
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“Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
'Art,' 1841
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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.
"Self-Reliance", 1841
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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.
"Self Reliance"
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“Hitch your wagon to a star.
"American Civilization", The Atlantic Monthly, 1862
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“Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance.
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“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.”
“Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.”
“When you strike at a king, you must kill him.”
“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.”
“We do what we must, and call it by the best names.”
“We all boil at different degrees.”
“Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
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“Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.”
“Tis the good reader that makes the good book.”
“Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.”
“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
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“There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and squirrel.
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“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.
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“The world belongs to the energetic.”
“The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatest, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.”
“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.
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“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
“The only gift is a portion of thyself.”
“The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.”
“The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
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“The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction.”
“The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.”
“The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.”
“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
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“The ancestor of every action is a thought.”
“The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.”
“That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.
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“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
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“People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
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“Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.”
“Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.”
“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”
“None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.”
“No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.”
“Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.
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“Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.”
“Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.”
“Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.”
“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air?”
“Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.
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“Insist on yourself; never imitate... Every great man is unique.”
“If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.
”
“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 hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.”
“He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.”
“God enters by a private door into every individual.”
“Give all to love; obey thy heart.”
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.”
“Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
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“Every hero becomes a bore at last.
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“Every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm.”
“Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.”
“Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
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“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
“Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.”
“Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.”
“Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.”
“Children are all foreigners.
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“Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.”
“Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
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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 self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”
“As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.
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“All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.”
“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
“A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.”
“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.
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“A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.”

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