The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues, the better we like him. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There is a capacity of virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral sentiment. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of appearances. It is the outmost action of the inward life. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our globe discovers its bidden virtues, not only in heroes and arch-angels, but in gossips and nurses. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
For a great nature, it is a happiness to escape a religious training; religion of character is so apt to be invaded. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The cardinal virtue of a teacher [is] to protect the pupil from his own influence. — 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
We know who is benevolent, by quite other means than the amount of subscriptions to soup-societies. It is only low merits that… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our… — 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
Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The sentiment of virtue is a reverence and delight in the presence of certain divine laws. It perceives that this homely game… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every great institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man. His character determines the character of the organization. — 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
By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave One scent to hyson and to wall-flower, One sound to pine-groves and to water-falls, One… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Cities force growth and make men talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial. What possesses interest for us is thenatural of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
All writing is by the grace of God. People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with bad.… — 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
Society gains nothing whilst a man, not himself renovated, attempts to renovate things around him; he has become tediously good insome particular… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
For you, o broker, there is no other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Every word which is used to express a moral or intellectual fact, if traced to its root, is found to be borrowed… — 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
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