But what help from these fineries or pedantries? What help from thought? Life is not dialectics. We, I think, in these times,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I find nothing in fables more astonishing than my experience in every hour. One moment of a man's life is a fact… — 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
For the time of towns is tolled from the world by funereal chimes, but in nature the universal hours are counted by… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennui, vanish,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is the essence of poetry to spring, like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If, at any time, it comes into my head, that a present is due from me to somebody, I am puzzled what… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There was never a man born so wise or good, but one or more companions came into the world with him, who… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“It is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive that like the spirit of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“the sense of being which in calm hours arises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The tendencies of the times favor the idea of self-government, and leave the individual, for all code, to the rewards and penalties… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“We fetch fire and water, run about all day among the shops and markets, and get our clothes and shoes made and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our desires presage the capacities within us; they are harbingers of what we shall be able to accomplish. What we can do… — 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. The most exact… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of country and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Tomorrow, a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. ... In due time, the fraud is manifest, and words lose… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never shines in which this element may not work. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our faith comes in moments . . . yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nature will not be Buddhist: she resents generalizing, and insults the philosopher in every moment with a million fresh particulars. — 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
Time goes by fast, and people go in and out of your life so quickly, so you should never miss the opportunity… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There comes a time in each man's education in which he comes to the conclusion that envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Illusion, Temperament, Succession, Surface, Surprise, Reality, Subjectiveness,--these are the threads on the loom of time, these are the lords of life. — 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
In the moment when you make the least petition to God, though it be but a silent wish that he may approve… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The energetic action of the times develops individualism, and the religious appear isolated. I esteem this a step in the right direction.… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of time. As the air I breathe is drawn… — 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,—that… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
All poets have signalized their consciousness of rare moments when they were superior to themselves, -when a light, a freedom, a power… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of time. As the air I breathe is drawn… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“But the President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes uppermost, and, because he says every thing, saying, at last, something good; but a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The kitchen clock is more convenient than sidereal time. We must use the popular category, as we do by the Linnæan classification,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There will always be in society certain persons who are mercuries of its approbation, and whose glance will at any time determinefor… — 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
