The finest and noblest ground on which people can live is truth; the real with the real; a ground on which nothing… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Everything that is popular, it has been said, deserves the attention of philosophers: and this is for the obvious reason, that although… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people's estimate of us, and all fear of remaining unknown is not less so. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
People only see what they are prepared to see. If you look for what is good and what you can be grateful… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Most people, who have quit smoking, have had at least one unsuccessful try in the past. It is not important how many… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Life is not intellectual or critical, but sturdy. Its chief good is for well-mixed people who can enjoy what they find, without… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If you would learn to write, it is in the street you must learn it. Both for the vehicle and for the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no person can sincerely try to help another without helping… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
People are timid and apologetic; they are no longer upright; they dare not say "I think," "I am," but quote some saint… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our civility, England determines the style of, inasmuch as England is the strongest of the family of existing nations, and as we… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If the aristocrat is only valid in fashionable circles, and not with truckmen, he will never be a leader in fashion; and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men should take these moralists at their… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
[Whenever the average intellect of the clergy declines in the balance with the average intellect of the people] the churches will be… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Some men love only to talk where they are masters. They like to go to school-girls, or to boys, or into the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Not gold, but only man can make a people great and strong; men who, for truth and honor's sake, stand fast and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The art of sculpture is long ago perished to any real effect... it is the game of a rude and youthful people,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Ten percent of people can think, another ten percent of people think that they think, and eighty percent of people would rather… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours; whilst the charm… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Time goes by fast, and people go in and out of your life so quickly, so you should never miss the opportunity… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
People suffer all their life long, under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated. But it is impossible for a person… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
He is the rich man in whom the people are rich, and he is the poor man in whom the people are… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will. His class is… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We believe that the defects of so many perverse and so many frivolous people, who make up society, are organic, and society… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our own top; but through sympathy we are capable of energy and endurance. Concert… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
When the vain speaker has sat down, and the people say 'what a good speech,' it still takes an ounce to balance… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I have heard that stiff people lose something of their awkwardness under high ceilings, and in spacious halls. I think, sculptureand painting… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Do not shut up the young people against their will in a pew, and force the children to ask them questions for… — 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
Our young people are diseased with the theological problems of original sin, origin of evil, predestination, and the like. These never presented… — 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 we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)” — 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 of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea over land and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, I look… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
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