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Destiny Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

37 Destiny quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

All Destiny quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s page

One line calls fate a name for facts not yet examined by thought, suggesting destiny is unknown. Other quotes argue that accepting fate does not excuse us from defending liberty, duty, and personal character. The author also warns that obsessing over birth‑stars can invite fear and limit action.

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Whatever limits us we call fate.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Fate is unpenetrated causes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The efforts which we make to escape from our destiny only serve to lead us into it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The book of nature is the book of fate. She turns the gigantic pages, leaf after leaf never returning one.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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[D]ivine Providence... keeps the universe open in every direction to the soul...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We shun the rugged battle of fate where strength is born.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The doctrine of Necessity or Destiny is the doctrine of Toleration.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks he is free.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If you believe in fate, believe in it, at least, for your good.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Men are what their mothers made them. You may as well ask a loom which weaves huckabuck why it does not make…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“O, believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the round world, which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We forget ourselves and our destinies in health, and the chief use of temporary sickness is to remind us of these concerns.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Everything teaches transition, transference, metamorphosis: therein is human power, in transference, not in creation; & therein is human destiny, not in longevity…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is a power in love to divine another's destiny better than that other can, and by heroic encouragements, hold him to…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The element running through entire nature, which we popularly call Fate, is known to us as limitation. Whatever limits us, we callFate.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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But every jet of chaos which threatens to exterminate us is convertible by intellect into wholesome force. Fate is unpenetrated causes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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And last of all, high over thought, in the world of morals, Fate appears as vindicator, levelling the high, lifting the low,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Men of extraordinary success, in their honest moments, have always sung, "Not unto us, not unto us." According to the faith of…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Man is made of the same atoms the world is, he shares the same impressions, predispositions, and destiny. When his mind is…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We stand against fate, as children stand up against the wall in their father's house, and notch their height from year to…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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O friend, my bosom said, Through thee alone the sky is arched. Through thee the rose is red; All things through thee…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To wade in marshes and sea margins is the destiny of certain bird, and they are so accurately made for this that…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Go face the fire at sea, or the cholera in your friend's house, or the burglar in your own, or what danger…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Accept the place the divine providence has found for you.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A part of fate is the freedom of man. Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in his soul.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Those who have ruled human destinies, like planets, for thousands of years, were not handsome men.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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As we are, so we do; and as we do, so is it done to us; we are the builders of our…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The only person you are destined to become is the person you destined to be.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Enlarge not thy destiny, said the oracle: endeavor not to do more than is given thee in charge.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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They who talk much of destiny, their birth-star, etc., are in a lower dangerous plane, and invite the evils they fear.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Art and power will go on as they have done,--will make day out of night, time out of space, and space out…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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

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I do not speak with any fondness but the language of coolest history, when I say that Boston commands attention as the…

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.

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