The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of appearances. It is the outmost action of the inward life. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
This immediate dependence of language upon nature, this conversion of an outward phenomenon into a type of somewhat in human life,never loses… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A man passes for that he is worth. What he is engraves itself on his face, on his form, on his fortunes,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life,… — 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
Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
No picture of life can have any veracity that does not admit the odious facts. A man's power is hooped in by… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The divine gift is ever the instant life, which receives and uses and creates, and can well bury the old in the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
he who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The use of literature is to afford us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a purchase… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is the same among the men and women, as among the silent trees; always a referred existence, an absence, never a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We are always getting ready to live, but never living... The wave moves onward but the particles of which it is composed… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The universe is the externisation of the soul. Wherever the life is, that bursts into appearance around it. Our science is sensual,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about them. They lived in their writings, and sotheir house… — 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
The worthless and offensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest, invariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Life is girt all round with a zodiac of sciences, the contributions of men who have perished to add their point of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
By degrees we may come to know the primitive sense of the permanent objects of nature, so that the world shall be… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Let the realist not mind appearances. Let him delegate to others the costly courtesies and decorations of social life. The virtuesare economists,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each one a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, Deems not that great Napoleon Stops his horse, and lists withdelight, Whilst his files sweep… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget… — 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
Every man beholds his human condition with a degree of melancholy. As a ship aground is battered by the waves, so man,… — 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
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
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
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
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
“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
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
A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
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
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 Copy Share
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 Copy Share
