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Thinking Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

161 Thinking quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

All Thinking quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s page

I am; therefore, I had nothing better to do than to think, and the quotes celebrate independent thought as a path to freedom. They urge you to accept your own genius, speak your mind, and find happiness by choosing how you view your situation. They also warn against false notions of liberty.

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Thought makes everything fit for use.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I think no virtue goes with size.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Thoughts rule the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Music causes us to think eloquently.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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So far as a person thinks; they are free.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Accept your genius and say what you think.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Our thinking is a pious reception.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past? The sun shines today also.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Two sorts of writers possess genius: those who think, and those who cause others to think.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks he is free.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The dead sleep in their moonless night; my business is with the living.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Don't ever give up on something or someone that you can't go a full day without thinking about.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The socialism of our day has done good service in setting men to thinking how certain civilizing benefits, now only enjoyed by…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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You will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday though it may be, I have not the smallest interest in any holiday,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The exercise of all the senses is as intense pleasure, as anyone will find, who recovers the use of one after being…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I think no virtue goes with size;The reason of all cowardiceIs, that men are overgrown,And, to be valiant, must come downTo the…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The world is always childish, and with each new gewgaw of a revolution or new constitution that it finds, thinks it shall…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I will no longer confer, differ, refer, defer, prefer, or suffer. I renounce the whole tribe of fero. I embrace absolute life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Who is he that shall control me? Why may not I act and speak and write and think with entire freedom? What…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I do not know what arguments mean in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think;…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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

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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms, could I live in a great city, and know where…

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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Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect. A man does not see, that, as he eats, so he thinks: as he deals,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is wonderful how soon a piano gets into a log-hut on the frontier. You would think they found it under a…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If there be any man who thinks the ruin of a race of men a small matter, compared with the last decoration…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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As thinkers, mankind has ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness;…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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You think that your silence on certain topics, perhaps in the face of injustice, or unkindness, or mean-spiritedness, causes others to reserve…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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But, if we explore the literature of Heroism, we shall quickly come to Plutarch, who is its Doctor and historian. To him…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.

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