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Truth Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

165 Truth quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

All Truth quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s page

History shows a steady gain of truth through conflict between material and spiritual ideas. People often miss their own quiet sunrise, not recognizing the truth that lives inside them. Defending truth needs courage, and its beauty can be stronger than love’s affection.

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Frankness invites frankness.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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All necessary truth is its own evidence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The greatest homage to truth is to use it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The gentleman is a man of truth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Great men are sincere.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Wherever the truth is injured, defend it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A system-grinder hates the truth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Convert life into truth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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You need not fear to handle the truth roughly. She is no invalid.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The first point of courtesy must always be truth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The truth, the hope of any time, must always be sought in minorities.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We must set up a strong present tense against all rumors of wrath, past and to come.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If you take in a lie, you must take in all that belongs to it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less imports the question of authorship.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I covet truth; beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We are of different opinions at different hours, but we always may be said to be at heart on the side of…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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

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“Then I said, “I covet truth; Beauty is unripe childhood’s cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood; and if there is any truth in him, if he rests at last…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The sermon which I write inquisitive of truth is good a year after, but that which is written because a sermon must…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When a thought of Plato becomes a thought to me,--when a truth that fired the soul of Pindar fires mine, time is…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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

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We commonly say that the rich man can speak the truth, can afford honesty, can afford independence of opinion and action;and thatis…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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For all men live by truth, and stand in need of expression. In love, in art, in avarice, in politics, in labor,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The secret of genius is to suffer no fiction to exist for us; to realize all that we know; in the high…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“There is for every man a statement possible of that truth which he is most unwilling to receive, — a statement possible,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What is man born for but to be a Reformer, a Remaker of what man has made? A renouncer of lies; a…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If I have renounced the search of truth, if I have come into the port of some pretending dogmatism, some new church,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society is an illusion to the young citizen. It lies before him in rigid repose, with certain names, men, and institutions, rootedlike…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season, that he is born into the…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Explore, and explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatise yourself, nor accept…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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...most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion.…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A mind does not receive truth as a chest receives jewels that are put into it, but as the stomach takes up…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Nature enhances her beauty, to the eye of loving men, from their belief that the poet is beholding her shows at the…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“People go out to look at sunrises and sunsets who do not recognize their own, quietly and happily, but know that it…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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More by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

“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