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Friendship Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

173 Friendship quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

All Friendship quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s page

Ralph Waldo Emerson sees friendship as a kind of treasure that can be found in books, in nature, and even as a gift from a higher power. He compares friends to ships sailing with God, to names we exchange to reflect our own souls, and warns that true friendship is too good to be spoiled by praise.

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The best way to have a good friend is to be one.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Oh, be my friend, and teach me to be thine!

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A friend may be nature's most magnificent creation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The forest is my loyal friend A Delphic shrine to me.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Friendship buys friendship.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Keep your friendships in repair.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If you want a friend you need to be a friend.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We never touch but at points.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Friendship is an order of nobility; from its revelations we come more worthily into nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Persecution readily knits friendship between its victims.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food, and an immense quiet

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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My joy in friends, those sacred people, is my consolation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We walk alone in the world. Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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But in our experience, man is cheap and friendship wants its deep sense. We affect to dwell with our friends in their…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed. When friendships are real, they are not glass threads…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Same, the Same: friend and foe are of one stuff; the ploughman, the plough, and the furrow, are of one stuff;…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Our chief want in life, is, someone who shall make us do what we can. This is the service of a friend.…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A man is a little thing whilst he works by and for himself, but, when he gives voice to the rules of…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I cannot find language of sufficient energy to convey my sense of the sacredness of private integrity. All men, all things, the…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Learn how to carry a friendship greatly, whether or not it is returned. Why should one regret if the receiver is not…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We say that every man is entitled to be valued by his best moment. We measure our friends so. We know, they…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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

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“I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe, and is…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The bulk of mankind believe in two gods. They are under one dominion here in the house, as friend and parent, in…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We over-estimate the conscience of our friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature finer, his temptations less. Everything that…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Leave this touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from him,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“The definition of success--To laugh much; to win respect of intelligent persons and the affections of children; to earn the approbation of…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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As I walked in the woods I felt what I often feel that nothing can befall me in life, no calamity, no…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter where moult the wings which will bear…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Consider what you have in the smallest well-chosen library-a company of the wisest and wittiest men which can be plucked out of…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“In good company there is never such discourse between two, across the table, as takes place when you leave them alone. In…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself and whatever science or art or course of action…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,--"But…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records…

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If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular…

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If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the…

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A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his…

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Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty.

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“There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The order of things consents to virtue.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life only avails, not the having lived.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentimentin mankind; so that the power…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am; therefore, I had nothing better to do than to think.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a…

Ralph Waldo Emerson