Life is a series of surprises and would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Neither is life long enough for friendship. That is a serious and majestic affair. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the total worth of man. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is the doctrine of the popular music-masters, that whoever can speak can sing. So, probably, every man is eloquent once in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like the bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Venus, when her son was lost, Cried him up and down the coast, In hamlets, palaces, and parks, And told the truant… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The sweetest music is not in the oratorio, but in the human voice when it speaks from its instant life tones of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Insist on your life, never imitate... do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Life is comic or pitiful as soon as the high ends of being fade out of sight, and man becomes near-sighted, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The roses under my window make no reference to former roses or better ones; they are what they are; they exist with… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I know nothing which life has to offer so satisfying as the profound good understanding, which can subsist, after much exchange ofgood… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
How many attractions for us have our passing fellows in the streets, both male and female, which our ethics forbid us to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects. What… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation;… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
And what fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between two parties? Perhaps we never saw them… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Prayer that craves a particular commodity, -- anything less than all good, -- is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I am not engaged to Christianity by decent forms, or saving ordinances; it is not usage, it is not what I do… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I think that the heroism which at this day would make on us the impression of Epaminondas and Phocion must be that… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny;… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Thus we do not carry a counsel in our breasts, or do not know it; and because we cannot shake off from… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“All things are moral; and in their boundless changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature. Therefore is nature glorious with form,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“As many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by and by stand in a new world of our own creation, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The modernness of all good books seems to give men an existence as wide as man. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity, and not for life. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
“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 Copy Share
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 Copy Share
A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
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 Copy Share
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 Copy Share
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 Copy Share
