“Tomorrow, a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. ... In due time, the fraud is manifest, and words lose… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If, at any time, it comes into my head, that a present is due from me to somebody, I am puzzled what… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our faith comes in moments . . . yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never shines in which this element may not work. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is a sign of our times, conspicuous to the coarsest observer, that many intelligent and religious persons withdraw themselves from the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Speak your latent conviction. . . Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
[T]omorrow is a new day. You shall begin it well & serenely, & with too high a spirit to be cumbered with… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I am not so foolish as to declaim against forms. Forms are as essential as bodies; but to exalt particular forms, to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Men of extraordinary success, in their honest moments, have always sung, "Not unto us, not unto us." According to the faith of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I have just been conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will make it for a moment appear… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The magnanimous know very well that they who give time, or money, or shelter, to the stranger--so it be done for love,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nature will not be Buddhist: she resents generalizing, and insults the philosopher in every moment with a million fresh particulars. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
For no man can write anything who does not think that what he writes is, for the time, the history of the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Time goes by fast, and people go in and out of your life so quickly, so you should never miss the opportunity… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Whence, then, this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There comes a time in each man's education in which he comes to the conclusion that envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Illusion, Temperament, Succession, Surface, Surprise, Reality, Subjectiveness,--these are the threads on the loom of time, these are the lords of life. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The intuition of the moral sentiment is an insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul. These laws execute themselves.… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We ask for long life, but 'tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A friend is Janus-faced: he looks to the past and the future. He is the child of all my foregoing hours, the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Is it not better to intimate our astonishment as we pass through this world if it be only for a moment ere… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
But what help from these fineries or pedantries? What help from thought? Life is not dialectics. We, I think, in these times,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I find nothing in fables more astonishing than my experience in every hour. One moment of a man's life is a fact… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennui, vanish,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
For the time of towns is tolled from the world by funereal chimes, but in nature the universal hours are counted by… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is the essence of poetry to spring, like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Time is indeed the theater and seat of illusions; nothing is so ductile and elastic. The mind stretches an hour to a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
God had infinite time to give us… He cut it up into a near succession of new mornings, and, with each, therefore,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
For this present, hard Is the fortune of the bard, Born out of time; All his accomplishment, From Nature's utmost treasure spent,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Abundance is not a result you create. It is an existing state you recognize. We ask for long life, but 'tis deep… — 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