Sport is the bloom and glow of a perfect health. The great will not condescend to take anything seriously; all must be… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Pretension may sit still, but cannot act. Pretension never feigned an act of real greatness. Pretension never wrote an Iliad, nordrove back… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Men achieve a certain greatness unawares when working to another aim. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep warm.… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Great men do not content us. It is their solitude, not their force, that makes them conspicuous. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nobody is glad in the gladness of another, and our system is one of war, of an injurious superiority. Every child of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Instead of feeling a poverty when we encounter a great man, let us treat the new comer like a travelling geologist, who… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The great man is not convulsible or tormentable; events pass over him without much impression. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. .… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do.... Build, therefore, your own world. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Great men are more distinguished by range and extent than by originality. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe; can we not take the leap? — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every young man is prone to be misled by the suggestions of his own ill-founded ambition which he mistakes for the promptings… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A great man scarcely knows how he dines, how he dresses; but without railing or precision, his living is natural and poetic. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
He is great who is what he is from nature, and who never reminds us of others. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There are days when the great are near us, when there is no frown on their brow, no condescension even; when they… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The great make its feel, first of all, the indifference of circumstances. They call into activity the higher perceptions, and subdue the… — 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