Character Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our opinions of the world, are confessions of character.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you would not be known to do anything, never do it.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

People are very inclined to set moral standards for others.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The virtue in most request is conformity.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The only reward of virtue is virtue.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think no virtue goes with size.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Human character evermore publishes itself. The most fugitive deed and word, the intimated purpose, express character.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

It takes a good deal of character to judge a person by his future instead of his past

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function; living is the functionary.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men of character are the conscience of the society to which they belong.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the eye.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

As men get on in life, they acquire a love for sincerity, and somewhat less solicitude to be lulled or amused. In…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thus grows up fashion, an equivocal semblance, the most puissant, the most fantastic and frivolous, the most feared and followed, and which…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated. No secret can be kept in the civilized world. Society is a masked ball…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

How much we forgive to those who yield us the rare spectacle of heroic manners! We will pardon them the want of…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; - read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is only when mind and character slumber that the dress can be seen. If the intellect were always awake, and every…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The progress of religion is steadily to its identity with morals. Strength enters just as much as the moral element prevails.

— 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…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

In dreams we are true poets; we create the persons of the drama; we give them appropriate figures faces, costumes; they are…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am not much an advocate for traveling, and I observe that men run away to other countries because they are not…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The moral sense reappears today with the same morning newness that has been from of old the fountain of beauty and strength.…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

There never was a strong character that was not made strong by discipline of the will; there never was a strong people…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our people are slow to learn the wisdom of sending character instead of talent to Congress. Again and again they have sent…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

For all our penny-wisdom, for all our soul-destroying slavery to habit, it is not to be doubted that all men have sublime…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self Esteem::"It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“One man thinks justice consists in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who is very remiss in…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are many eyes that can detect and honor the prudent and household virtues; there are many that can discern Genius on…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Broader and deeper we must write our annals, from an ethical reformation, from an influx of the ever new, ever sanative conscience,…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The virtues are economists, but some of the vices are also...Pride is handsome, economical; pride eradicates so many vices, letting none subsist…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson