We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds... A nation… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Do not you see that every misfortune is misconduct; that every honour is desert; that every effort is an insolence of your… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The beautiful laws of time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude, are holes and dens. If the hive be disturbed by… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Far off, men swell, bully, and threaten; bring them hand to hand, and they are feeble folk. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is wonderful how soon a piano gets into a log-hut on the frontier. You would think they found it under a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
[A]s if life were a thunder-storm wherein you can see by a flash the horizon, and then cannot see your hand.... — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There are many eyes that can detect and honor the prudent and household virtues; there are many that can discern Genius on… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In the right hands, literature is not resorted to as a consolation, and by the broken and decayed, but as a decalogue. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We come to our own and would make friends with matter, which the ambitious chatter of the schools would persuade us to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no luster as you turn it in your hand, until you… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
He, who loves the bristle of bayonets, only sees in their glitter what beforehand he feels in his hand. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Only by obedience to his genius; only by the freest activity in the way constitutional to him, does an angel seem to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
When I go into the garden with a spade and dig a bed I feel such an exhilaration and health that I… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The passive master lent his hand, To the vast Soul which o'er him planned. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The leaves are falling, falling as from way off, as though far gardens withered in the skies; they are falling with denying… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is an esoteric doctrine of society, that a little wickedness is good to make muscle; as if conscience were not good… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season, that he is born into the… — 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 motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars, his… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In the hands of the discoverer, medicine becomes a heroic art . . wherever life is dear he is a demigod. — 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