Most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can, and would fain have the praise of having… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What the tender and poetic youth dreams to-day, and conjures up with inarticulate speech, is to-morrow the vociferated result of public opinion,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Language is a city, to the building of which every human being brought a stone; yet he is no more to be… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The first steps in Agriculture, Astronomy, Zoology, (those first steps which the farmer, the hunter, and the sailor take,) teach that nature's… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Society gains nothing whilst a man, not himself renovated, attempts to renovate things around him; he has become tediously good insome particular… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A work of art is an abstract or epitome of the world. It is the result or expression of nature, in miniature.… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It seems as if nature, in regarding the geologic night behind her, when, in five or six millenniums, she had turned out… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Wise cultivated, genial conversation is the last flower of civilization, and the best result which life has to offer us,--a cup for… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The scholar was not raised by the sacred thoughts amongst which he dwelt, but used them to selfish ends. He was a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The farmer after sacrificing pleasure, taste, freedom, thought, love, to his work, turns out often a bankrupt, like the merchant.This result might… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The results of life are uncalculated and uncalculable. The years teach much which the days never know. The persons who compose our… — 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