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
“I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our country, customs, laws, our ambitions, and our notions of fit and fair-all these we never made; we found them ready-made; we… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The trail of the serpent reaches into all the lucrative professions and practices of man. Each has its own wrongs. Each finds… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Who is he that shall control me? Why may not I act and speak and write and think with entire freedom? What… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A strong person makes the law and custom null before his own will. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself. Be true to the highest within your soul and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Is all literature eavesdropping, and all art Chinese imitation? our life a custom, and our body borrowed, like a beggar’s dinner, from… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In this great society wide lying around us, a critical analysis would find very few spontaneous actions. It is almost all custom… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself anylonger for you, or you. If you can love… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We must hold a man amenable to reason for the choice of his daily craft or profession. It is not an excuse… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Men are too coarsely made for the delicacy of beautiful carriage and… — 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