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Conversation Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

52 Conversation quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

All Conversation quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s page

Conversation is a game of circles, an art where each person competes with all of humanity. The quotes describe dialogue as a laboratory for character and thought, a way to reveal ourselves. They also warn that society can turn conversation into empty ceremonies, draining its usefulness.

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A man of no conversation should smoke.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Conversation is a game of circles.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Conversation is the laboratory and workshop of the student.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The best of life is conversation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Conversation is an evanescent relation,--no more.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into ceremonies and escapes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Man is the broken giant, and in all his weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is no one who does not exaggerate. In conversation, men are encumbered with personality, and talk too much.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Do not speak of God much. After a very little conversation on the highest nature, thought deserts us and we run into…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere people.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take part in a conversation of the most sincere and searching sort.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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All good conversation, manners, and action come from a spontaneity which forgets usages and makes the moment great.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Great conversation ... requires an absolute running of two souls into one.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, with the advantage that the ocular dialect needs no dictionary, but is…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I feel the same truth how often in my trivial conversation with my neighbours, that somewhat higher in each of us overlooks…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The uses of travel are occasional, and short; but the best fruit it finds, when it finds it, is conversation; and this…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Conversation is our account of ourselves...Conversation is the vent of character as well as thoughts...It is the laboratory of the student.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The art of conversation, or the qualification for a good companion, is a certain self-control, which now holds the subject, now lets…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The vocabulary of an omniscient man would embrace words and images excluded from polite conversation. What would be base, or even obscene,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In this our talking America, we are ruined by our good nature and listening on all sides. This compliance takes away the…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In excited conversation we have glimpses of the universe, hints of power native to the soul, far-darting lights and shadows of an…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Man is the end of nature; nothing so easily organizes itself in every part of the universe as he; no moss, no…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes, you might see her…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean "the…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Don't hang a dismal picture on the wall, and do not daub with sables and glooms in your conversation. Don't be a…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I know nothing which life has to offer so satisfying as the profound good understanding, which can subsist, after much exchange ofgood…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Manners aim to facilitate life, to get rid of impediments, and bring the man pure to energize. They aid our dealing and…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It is the property of the religious spirit to be the most refining of all influences. No external advantages, no culture of…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Put any company of people together with freedom for conversation, and a rapid self-distribution takes place into sets and pairs. The best…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“In good company there is never such discourse between two, across the table, as takes place when you leave them alone. In…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Conversation in society is found to be on a platform so low as to exclude science, the saint, and the poet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Private, accidental, confidential conversation breeds thought. Clubs produce oftener words.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The action of the soul is oftener in that which is felt and left unsaid than in that which is said in…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Life is very narrow. Bring any club or company of intelligent men together again after ten years, and if the presence of…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In all things I would have the island of a man inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In all conversation between two persons, tacit reference is made, as to a third party, to a common nature. That third party…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The best conversation is rare. Society seems to have agreed to treat fictions as realities, and realities as fictions; and the simple…

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