Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-puller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring, a south wind, not an east wind. — 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
It is the delight of vulgar talent to dazzle and to bind the beholder. But true genius seeks to defend us from… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past? The sun shines today also. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim... The details, the prose of nature, he should omit, and give… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Why should the way I feel depend on the thoughts in someone else's head? — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a suggestion of that he should be. Men… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The great object of Education should be commensurate with the object of life. It should be a moral one; to teach self-trust:… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The cheapness of man is every day's tragedy. It is as real a loss that others should be low, as that we… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Lovers should guard their strangeness. If they forgive too much, all slides into confusion and meanness. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A seashell should be the crest of England, not only because it represents a power built on the waves, but also the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Why should I hasten to solve every riddle which life offers me? I am well assured that the Questioner, who brings me… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Why should we fear to be crushed by savage elements, we who are made up of the same elements? — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our life is not so much threatened as our perception. Ghostlike we glide through nature, and should not know our place again. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
My life should be unique; it should be an alms, a battle, a conquest, a medicine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every really able man, in whatever direction he works - a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every man should let out all the length of all the reigns; should find or make a frank and healthy expression of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nature wishes that woman should attract man, yet she often cunningly moulds into her face a little sarcasm, which seems to say,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If I should go out of church whenever I hear a false statement I could never stay there five minutes. But why… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What a benefit would the American government, not yet relieved of its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city, village… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Romeo, of dead, should be cut up into little stars to make the heavens fine. Life, with this pair, has no other… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor. — 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
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
