“In inquiries respecting the laws of the world and the frame of things, the highest reason is always the truest.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we must obey. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Let the amelioration in our laws of property proceed from the concession of the rich, not from the grasping of the poor.… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In our definitions, we grope after the spiritual by describing it as invisible. The true meaning of spiritual is real; that law… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A state of war or anarchy, in which law has little force, is so far valuable, that it puts every man on… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
He in whom the love of truth predominates . . . submits to the inconvenience of suspense and imperfect opinion; but he… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The dogma of the mystic offices of Christ being dropped, and he standing on his genius as a moral teacher, 'tis impossible… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I have been told by persons of experience in matters of taste, that the fashions follow a law of gradation, and are… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We must trust infinitely to the beneficent necessity which shines through all laws. Human nature expresses itself in them as characteristically as… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The value of a dollar is to buy just things; a dollar goes on increasing in value with all the genius and… — 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
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 Copy Share Image
The axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics. Thus, "the whole is greater than its part;" "reaction is equal to action;"… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I am primarily engaged to myself to be a public servant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all men that there… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
My gentleman gives the law where he is; he will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the field, and outshine all… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Science corrects the old creeds, sweeps away, with every new perception, our infantile catechisms, and necessitates a faith commensurate with the grander… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poeticyouth… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Motion or change, and identity or rest, are the first and second secrets of nature: Motion and Rest. The whole code of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant's economy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy. It… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state superinduces the opposite. The soul environs itself with friends, that it… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every man has a choice between love of truth and love of repose. Love of repose brings him a solid reputation and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Religionists are clinging to little, positive, verbal, formal versions of the moral law... while the laws of the Law, the great circling… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
All power is of one kind, a sharing of the nature of the world. The mind that is parallel with the laws… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The sentiment of virtue is a reverence and delight in the presence of certain divine laws. It perceives that this homely game… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We legislate against forestalling and monopoly; we would have a common granary for the poor; but the selfishness which hoards thecorn for… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Begin and proceed on a settled conviction that but little is permitted to any man to do or to know, and if… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
When fear enters the heart of a man at hearing the names of candidates and the reading of laws that are proposed,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
All successful men have agreed in one thing -- they were causationists. They believed that things went not by luck, but by… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If I made laws for Shakers or a school, I should gazette every Saturday all the words they were wont to use… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Poets should be law-givers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
All men, in the abstract, are just and good; what hinders them, in the particular, is, the momentary predominance of the finite… — 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
Hence, the less government we have, the better,--the fewer laws, and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formalGovernment,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
'Tis a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those of gravity, of chemistry, of botany, and so forth. Those… — 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
