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Ideas Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

46 Ideas quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

All Ideas quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s page

Ralph Waldo Emerson says ideas keep societies moving forward, like new mornings that bring fresh inventions. He warns that ideas stay only dreams unless people act on them, and he notes that true happiness comes from ideas about joy, not from wealth alone.

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We are the prisoners of ideas.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The idea of God ends in a paltry Methodist meeting-house.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Thought makes everything fit for use.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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God screens us evermore from premature ideas.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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One idea lights a thousand candles.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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An eminent teacher of girls said, "the idea of a girl's education, is, whatever qualifies them for going to Europe.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave, or they are no better than dreams

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The best university that can be recommended to a man of ideas is the gauntlet of the mob.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The men who come on the stage at one period are all found to be related to each other. Certain ideas are…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When at last in a race a new principle appears, an idea--that conserves it; ideas only save races.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The world leaves no track in space, and the greatest action of man no mark in the vast idea.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A feeble man can see the farms that are fenced and tilled, the houses that are built. The strong man sees the…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Plato is philosophy, and philosophy, Plato,--at once the glory and the shame of mankind, since neither Saxon nor Roman have availed to…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Let ideas establish their legitimate sway again in society, let life be fair and poetic, and the scholars will gladly be lovers,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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So all that is said of the wise man by Stoic or Oriental or modern essayist, describes to each reader his own…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Put the argument into a concrete shape, into an image, some hard phrase, round and solid as a ball, which they can…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What is it men love in Genius, but its infinite hope, which degrades all it has done? Genius counts all its miracles…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Our friends early appear to us as representatives of certain ideas, which they never pass or exceed. They stand on the brink…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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To me, however, the question of the times resolved itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Under the dominion of an idea, which possesses the minds of multitudes, as civil freedom, or the religious sentiment, the power ofpersons…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Each man too is a tyrant in tendency, because he would impose his idea on others; and their trick is their natural…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A man cannot utter two or three sentences without disclosing to intelligent ears precisely where he stands in life and thought, whether…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The tendencies of the times favor the idea of self-government, and leave the individual, for all code, to the rewards and penalties…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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THE POET A moody child and wildly wise Pursued the game with joyful eyes, Which chose, like meteors, their way, And rived…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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An orator or author is never successful till he has learned to make his words smaller than his ideas.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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General ideas are essences. They are our gods: they round and ennoble the most partial and sordid way of living.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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One single idea may have greater weight than all the men, animals, and machines for a century.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When we are exalted by ideas, we do not owe this to Plato, but to the idea, to which also Plato was…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I am so much a Unitarian as this: that I believe the human mind can admit but one God, and that every…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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God had infinite time to give us… He cut it up into a near succession of new mornings, and, with each, therefore,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which…

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