I will not hide my tastes or aversions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“God offers to every mind a choice between repose and truth. take which you please--you can never have both. [Essay on Intellect]” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every discourse is an approximate answer: but it is of small consequence, that we do not get it into verbs and nouns,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Best masters for the young writer and speaker are the fault- finding brothers and sisters at home who will not spare him,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What is a man born for but to be a reformer, a remaker of what has been made, a denouncer of lies,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Everything is beautiful seen from the point of the intellect, or as truth. But all is sour if seen as experience. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Observe how every truth and every error, each a thought of someone's mind, clothes itself with societies, houses, cities, language, ceremonies, newspapers — 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
If men would avoid that general language and general manner in which they strive to hide all that is peculiar, and would… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I cannot often enough say, that a man is only a relative and representative nature. Each is a hint of the truth,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
But speak the truth, and all nature and all spirits help you with unexpected furtherance. Speak the truth, and all things alive… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The truth, the hope, of any time must be sought in the minorities. Michael Angelo was the conscience of Italy. We grow… — 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
He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Is it not manifest that our academic institutions should have a wider scope; that they should not be timid and keep the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Each truth that a writer acquires is a lantern, which he turns full on what facts and thoughts lay already in his… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
All men, in the abstract, are just and good; what hinders them, in the particular, is, the momentary predominance of the finite… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Truth has not single victories; all things are its organs,--not only dust and stones, but errors and lies. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood; and if there is any truth in him ... I see not how… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
No man has a right perception of any truth, who has not been reacted on by it, so as to be ready… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Truth is always present; it only needs to lift the iron lids of the mind's eye to read its oracles. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Dreams have a poetic integrity and truth. This limbo and dust-hole of thought is presided over by a certain reason, too. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Let not the emphasis of hospitality lie in bed and board; but let truth and love and honor and courtesy flow in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every man finds a sanction for his simplest claims and deeds, in decisions of his own mind, which he calls Truth and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
And one may say boldly that no man has a right perceptionof any truth who has not been reacted on by it… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
[on Thoreau:] For not a particle of respect had he to the opinions of any man or body of men, but homage… — 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… — 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
Every man has a choice between love of truth and love of repose. Love of repose brings him a solid reputation and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The best conversation is rare. Society seems to have agreed to treat fictions as realities, and realities as fictions; and the simple… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Proverbs are the literature of reason, or the statements of absolute truth, without qualification. Like the sacred books of each nation, they… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
For you, o broker, there is no other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A self-denial, no less austere than the saint's, is demanded of the scholar. He must worship truth, and forgo all things for… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Do you love me? Means at last do you see the same truth I see? If you do, we are happy together;… — 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