The purpose of life is not to simply be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
They can conquer who believe they can. He has not learned the first lesson in life who does not every day surmount… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Me too thy nobleness has taught To master my despair; The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every man's condition is a solution in hieroglyph to those inquiries he would put. He acts it as life before he apprehends… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The consciousness in each man is a sliding scale, which identifies him now with the First Cause, and now with the flesh… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Ever the words of the gods resound; But the porches of man's ear seldom in this low life's round are unsealed, that… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy something, which does not represent your life… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The uses of travel are occasional, and short; but the best fruit it finds, when it finds it, is conversation; and this… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions, that around us… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation;… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Genius detects through the fly, through the caterpillar, through the grub, through the egg, the constant individual; through countless individuals the fixed… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The great object of Education should be commensurate with the object of life. It should be a moral one; to teach self-trust:… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrate to some stroke of the imagination. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A person's life is limited but serving the people is limitless. I want to devote my limited life to serving the people… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Life is comic or pitiful as soon as the high ends of being fade out of sight, and man becomes near-sighted, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If in the least particular, one could derange the order of nature, who would accept the gift of life? — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The wise man in the storm prays God not for safety from danger but for deliverance from fear. It is the storm… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Why should I hasten to solve every riddle which life offers me? I am well assured that the Questioner, who brings me… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - that is to have succeeded. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
This body, full of faults, Has yet one great quality: Whatever it encounters in this temporal life depends upon one's actions. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant. Now we reckon them as bank-days, by some debt which is to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and virtue, will purge the eyes to understanding her text. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for the deliverance from fear. It is… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Romeo, of dead, should be cut up into little stars to make the heavens fine. Life, with this pair, has no other… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs; The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere people. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I will no longer confer, differ, refer, defer, prefer, or suffer. I renounce the whole tribe of fero. I embrace absolute life. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The longer we live the more we must endure the elementary existence of men and women; and every brave heart must treat… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The household is a school of power. There, within the door, learn the tragi-comedy of human life. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Mankind have such a deep stake in inward illumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We swim, day by day, on a river of delusions, and are effectually amused with houses and towns in the air, of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle… — 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