[The wise skeptic does not teach doubt but how] to look for the permanent in the mutable and fleeting. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Generalization is always a new influx of divinity into the mind. Hence the thrill that attends it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I think all men know better than they do; know that the institutions we so volubly commend are go-carts and baubles; but… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Thought dissolves the material universe by carrying the mind up into a sphere where all is plastic. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think," "I am," but quotes some saint… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In old Egypt, it was established law, that the vote of a prophet be reckoned equal to a hundred hands. I think… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I think the vice of our housekeeping is that it does not hold man sacred. The vice of government, the vice of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The reason why any one refuses his assent to your opinion, or his aid to your benevolent design, is in you: he… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Senators and presidents have climbed so high with pain enough, not because they think the place specially agreeable, but as an apology… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The crystal sphere of thought is as concentrical as the geological structure of the globe. As our soils and rocks lie in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is sublime to think and say of another, I need never meet, or speak, or write to him: we need not… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Though your views are in straight antagonism to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, assume that you are saying precisely thatwhich all… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word; but it is not a language taken to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The great poet makes us feel our own wealth, and then we think less of his compositions. His best communication to our… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I do not see how a barbarous community and a civilized community can constitute a state. I think we must get rid… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nothing can bring you happiness but yourself especially how you choose to think about your situation. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We want but two or three friends, but these we cannot do without, and they serve us in every thought we think. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A few years ago, the liberal churches complained that the Calvinistic church denied to them the name of Christian. I think the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
For no man can write anything who does not think that what he writes is, for the time, the history of the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
When some external event raises your spirits and you think good days are preparing for you, do not believe it. It can… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What is addressed to us for contemplation does not threaten us, but makes us intellectual beings. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
By going one step further back in thought, discordant opinions are reconciled by being seen to be two extremes of one principle,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A just thinker will allow full swing to his scepticism. I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There are many faculties in man, each of which takes its turn of activity, and that faculty which is paramount in any… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Is it not better to intimate our astonishment as we pass through this world if it be only for a moment ere… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
An imaginative book renders us much more service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, when we arrive atthe… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I have heard that stiff people lose something of their awkwardness under high ceilings, and in spacious halls. I think, sculptureand painting… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Religionists are clinging to little, positive, verbal, formal versions of the moral law... while the laws of the Law, the great circling… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The worthless and offensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest, invariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We are always getting ready to live, but never living... The wave moves onward but the particles of which it is composed… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The virtue of art lies in detachment, in sequestering one object from the embarrassing variety. Until one thing comes out from theconnection… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
He needs no library, for he has not done thinking; no church, for he is himself a prophet; no statute book, for… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, Of thee, from the hill-top looking down; And the heifer, that lows in the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The unique impression of Jesus upon mankind - whose name is not so much written as ploughed into the history of the… — 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
People are timid and apologetic; they are no longer upright; they dare not say "I think," "I am," but quote some saint… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly,… — 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
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
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
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
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
“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
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
A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
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
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 Copy Share
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 Copy Share