Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We pass for what we are. Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate thier virtue or vice by overt… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Heaven sometimes hedges a rare character about with ungainliness and odium, as the burr that protects the fruit. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Happy will that house be in which the relations are formed from character; after the highest, and not after the lowest order;… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Since everything in nature answers to a moral power, if any phenomenon remains brute and dark, it is that the corresponding faculty… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The most Indian thing about the Indian is surely not his moccasins or his calumet, his wampum or his stone hatched, but… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Character is an invincible force, which acts by presence and without means — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If we must accept fate we are not less compelled to affirm liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
To be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false,--this is the mark and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the eye.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The merit of those who fill a space in the world's history, who are borne forward, as it were, by the weight… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
But the mark of American merit in painting, in sculpture, in poetry, in fiction, in eloquence, seems to be a certain grace… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
You cannot hide any secret. If the artist succor his flagging spirits by opium or wine, his work will characterize itself as… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
When we see a special reformer we feel like asking him, What right have you, sir, to your own virtue? Is virtue… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
We are like travellers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs. Whilst we see that it always stands ready… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What the tender and poetic youth dreams to-day, and conjures up with inarticulate speech, is to-morrow the vociferated result of public opinion,… — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
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 Image
