Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our desires presage the capacities within us; they are harbingers of what we shall be able to accomplish. What we can do… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
He is a dull observer whose experience has not taught him the reality and force of magic, as well as of chemistry. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I am not engaged to Christianity by decent forms, or saving ordinances; it is not usage, it is not what I do… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The secret of genius is to suffer no fiction to exist for us; to realize all that we know; in the high… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Speak as you think, be what you are, pay your debts of all kinds. I prefer to be owned as sound and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The Indian who was laid under a curse, that the wind should not blow on him, nor water flow to him, nor… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Power obeys reality, and not appearances; power is according to quality, and not quantity. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A man should not go where he cannot carry his whole sphere or society with him,Mnot bodily, the whole circle of his… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The best conversation is rare. Society seems to have agreed to treat fictions as realities, and realities as fictions; and the simple… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nature forever puts a premium on reality. What is done for effect is seen to be done for effect; what is done… — 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, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner; must fasten these images to some reality… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Illusion, Temperament, Succession, Surface, Surprise, Reality, Subjectiveness,--these are the threads on the loom of time, these are the lords of life. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A third felicity of age is that it has found expression. The youth suffers not only from ungratified desires, but from powers… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Genius is the naturalist or geographer of the supersensible regions, and draws their map; and, by acquainting us with new fields of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our faith comes in moments . . . yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe… — 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
