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Society Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

57 Society quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

All Society quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s page

Conformity is praised as society’s default virtue, while self‑reliance is pushed aside. The quotes claim that society chooses our jobs, marriages and even religions for us, and that it acts as a protective shield against the vulgarities of everyday life. They also describe society as a machine that can both lift and trap individuals.

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No society can ever be so large as one man.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society does not love its unmaskers.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The pest of society is egotists.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The virtues of society are the vices of the saints.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Isolation must precede true society.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When a man meets his make, society begins.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society has no bribe for me...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into ceremonies and escapes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The evolution of a highly destined society must be moral; it must run in the grooves of the celestial wheels.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Solitude is naught and society is naught. Alternate them and the good of each is seen.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society cannot do without cultivated men. As soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher wants become imperative.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Human society is made up of partialities. Each citizen has an interest and a view of his own, which, if followed out…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society will pardon much to genius and special gifts; but, being in its nature conventional, it loves what is conventional, or what…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A man is a beggar who only lives to the useful, and, however he may serve as a pin or rivet in…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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

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The longer we live the more we must endure the elementary existence of men and women; and every brave heart must treat…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion we have not chosen but society has chosen for us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In this great society wide lying around us, a critical analysis would find very few spontaneous actions. It is almost all custom…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Solitude is impractical, and society fatal. We must keep our head in the one and our hands in the other. The conditions…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The wise and just man will always feel that he stands on his own feet; that he imparts strength to the state,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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For, the advantages which fashion values, are plants which thrive in very confined localities, in a few streets, namely. Out of this…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Society we must have; but let it be society, and not exchanging news or eating from the same dish. Is it society…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society always consists, in greatest part, of young and foolish persons. The old, who have seen through the hypocrisy of the courts…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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As long as civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The plays of children are nonsense, but very educative nonsense. So it is with the largest and solemnest things, with commerce, government,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A mob is a society obodies, voluntarily bereaving themselves oreason, and traversing its work. The mob is man, voluntarily descending to the…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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

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We live in a very low state of the world, and pay unwilling tribute to government founded on force. There is not,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society is an illusion to the young citizen. It lies before him in rigid repose, with certain names, men, and institutions, rootedlike…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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

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“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

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Society is a hospital of incurables.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Conversation in society is found to be on a platform so low as to exclude science, the saint, and the poet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society always consists in the greatest part, of young and foolish persons.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records…

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If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular…

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If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the…

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A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his…

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Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty.

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

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The order of things consents to virtue.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life only avails, not the having lived.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

I am; therefore, I had nothing better to do than to think.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a…

Ralph Waldo Emerson