Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Fear God, and where you go men shall think they walk in hallowed cathedrals. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the total worth of man. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one man's wisdom anpther's folly. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Men succeed when they realize that their failures are the preparation for their victories. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Greatness is a property for which no man gets credit too soon; it must be possessed long before it is acknowledged. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There is no one who does not exaggerate. In conversation, men are encumbered with personality, and talk too much. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The wise man, the true friend, the finished character, we seek everywhere, and only find in fragments. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to… — 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
You have a place to live in this world which no other man can occupy; hence no competitors. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished-by fear...be honest with a man and you have no… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nobody is glad in the gladness of another, and our system is one of war, of an injurious superiority. Every child of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Men are what their mothers made them. You may as well ask a loom which weaves huckabuck why it does not make… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The craft with which the world is made runs also into the mind and character of men. No man is quite sane;… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Englands genius filled all measureOf heart and soul, of strength and pleasure,Gave to the mind its emperor,And life was larger than before:Nor… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Belief and love,--a believing love will relieve us of a vast load of care. O my brothers, God exists. There is a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. . .… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Criticism is infested with the cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge.… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
As thinkers, mankind has ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness;… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Consider what you have in the smallest well-chosen library-a company of the wisest and wittiest men which can be plucked out of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Culture is the suggestion, from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities through which he can modulate the… — 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