We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The farmer after sacrificing pleasure, taste, freedom, thought, love, to his work, turns out often a bankrupt, like the merchant.This result might… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
This one fact the world hates; that the soul becomes; for that forever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Look sharply after your own thoughts. They come unlooked for, like a new bird seen on your trees, and, if you turn… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Circles, like the soul, are neverending and turn round and round without a stop — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The crime which bankrupts men and states is job-work-declining from your main design, to serve a turn here and there. Nothing is… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops – no, but the… — 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
A poem is made up of thoughts, each of which filled the whole sky of the poet in its turn. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The results of life are uncalculated and uncalculable. The years teach much which the days never know. The persons who compose our… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The common experience is, that the man fits himself as well as he can to the customary details of that work or… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The secret of success in society is a certain heartiness and sympathy. A man who is not happy in company, cannot find… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The book of nature is the book of fate. She turns the gigantic pages, leaf after leaf never returning one. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The world looks like a multiplication-table, or a mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There are dull and bright, sacred and profane, coarse and fine egotists. It is a disease that, like influenza, falls on all… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no lustre as you turn it in your hand until you… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is doubtless a vice to turn one's eyes inward too much, but I am my own comedy and tragedy. — 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
If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If the king is in the palace, nobody looks at the walls. It is when he is gone, and the house is… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poeticyouth… — 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