Ralph Waldo Emerson: Trending quotes (page 2)

“We aim above the mark to hit the mark.”

“Great are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.”

“People destined to meet will do so, apparently by chance, at precisely the right moment.”

“Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Tho' her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive,
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.”

“Everything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight lines.”

“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

“Oh, tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire.”

“Sleep is not, death is not; Who seem to die Live. House you were born in, Friends of your spring-time, old man and young maid, Day's toil and it's guerdon, They are all vanishing, Fleeing to fables, Cannot be moored”

“Let us be silent, that we may hear the whisper of God.”

“Words are finite organs of the infinite mind.”

“If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.”

“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”

“There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.”

“The wise man in the storm prays God not for safety from danger but for deliverance from fear.”

“We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.”

“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”

“Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, — else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim.”

“Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.”