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
“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation;… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“If he had the earth for his pasture and the sea for his pond, he would be a pauper still. He only… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“The faith that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, that it scatters your force. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem, - a thought so passionate and alive that like… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The basis of good manners is self-reliance. Necessity is the law of all who are not self-possessed. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
This gives force to the strong -- that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
And truly it demands something god like in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is descending into us from we know not whence. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Whence, then, this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul. — 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
