Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes - page 36

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)
Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Love what is simple and beautiful. These are the essentials. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Your goodness must have some edge to it -- else it is none. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We think our civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star. In our barbarous society the influence of character is in its infancy. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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." View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Good men must not obey the laws too well. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is creative reading as well as creative writing. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, but symmetrical men never. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
If a man can... make a better mousetrap, the world will make a beaten path to his door. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Explore, and explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatise yourself, nor accept another's dogmatism. Why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth, for the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board. Make yourself necessary to the world, and mankind will give you bread, and if not store of it, yet such as shall not take away your property in all men's possessions, in all men's affections, in art, in nature, and in hope. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not. The best of beauty is a finer charm than skill in surfaces, in outlines, or rules of art can ever teach, namely, a radiation from the work of art of human character, - a wonderful expression through stone, or canvas, or musical sound, of the deepest and simplest attributes of our nature, and therefore most intelligible at last to those souls which have these attributes. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. 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 only what lies in its focus. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson