Philosophy Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Knowledge is the only elegance.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

We live ruins amid ruins.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A philosopher must be more than a philosopher.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

If the East loves infinity, the West delights in boundaries.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The secret in education lies in respecting the student.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The philosophy of waiting is sustained by all the oracles of the universe.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let none presume to measure the irregularities of Michael Angelo or Socrates by village scales.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Things bring their own philosophy with them, that is, prudence.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is not in the encyclopedia, or the treatise on metaphysics,…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Why should I vapor and play the philosopher, instead of ballasting, the best I can, this dancing balloon?”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Each philosopher, each bard, each actor has only done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

No performance is worth loss of geniality. 'Tis a cruel price we pay for certain fancy goods called fine arts and philosophy.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The poor and the low have their way of expressing the last facts of philosophy as well as you. "Blessed be nothing,"…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

“The philosophy of six thousand years has not searched the chambers and magazines of the soul. In its experiments there has always…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Bhagavad-Gita is an empire of thought and in its philosophical teachings Krishna has all the attributes of the full-fledged montheistic deity…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Everybody we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

How many attractions for us have our passing fellows in the streets, both male and female, which our ethics forbid us to…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men are not philosophers, but are rather very foolish children, who, by reason of their partiality, see everything in the most absurd…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Will is the measure of power. To a great genius there must be a great will. If the thought is not a…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Thus to him, to this school-boy under the bending dome of day, is suggested, that he and it proceed from one root;…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have been told, that in some public discourses of mine my reverence for the intellect has made me unjustly cold to…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Live in the fields, and God will give you lectures on natural philosophy every day.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Plato is philosophy, and philosophy, Plato,--at once the glory and the shame of mankind, since neither Saxon nor Roman have availed to…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Science always goes abreast with the just elevation of the man, keeping step with religion and metaphysics; or, the state of science…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us,…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man should have a farm or a mechanical craft for his culture. We must have a basis for our higher accomplishments,…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson