1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
page 14
727 Timeless Quotes Inspiring Self-Discovery, Happiness, and Life's Adventures

Discover the profound wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson through his timeless quotes. From inspiring words on self-discovery and happiness to embracing life's adventures, delve into the brilliance of Emerson's thoughts that will leave you pondering and uplifted.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, known as Waldo, was a renowned American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet. He played a leading role in the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century and was regarded as a champion of individualism. Emerson's philosophy of transcendentalism is best expressed in his essay "Nature" and his speech "The American Scholar," which were highly influential in American intellectual thought. His essays, including "Self-Reliance" and "The Over-Soul," explore ideas of individuality, freedom, and the connection between the soul and the world. Emerson's work had a profound impact on future thinkers, writers, and poets.

Born in Boston in 1803 to a Unitarian minister father and a mother of English ancestry, Emerson grew up surrounded by strong female influences. He attended Harvard College and later became a teacher before spending two years living in nature to study and write. During this time, he faced poor health and traveled to seek warmer climates. It was during his stay in St. Augustine that he encountered the harsh reality of slavery firsthand. This experience further shaped his beliefs and advocacy for individual freedom.

Overall, Ralph Waldo Emerson's ideas on transcendentalism influenced American intellectual thought significantly. His belief in individuality, freedom, and mankind's potential for realization has left a lasting impact on subsequent generations of thinkers and writers alike.

✵ 25. May 1803 – 27. April 1882   •   Other names Ральф Эмерсон
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson: 727   quotes 87   likes

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

“If I could put my hand on the north star, would it be as beautiful? The sea is lovely, but when we bathe in it, the beauty forsakes all the near water. For the imagination and senses cannot be gratified at the same time.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beauty
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)

Love , Beauty , Imagination , Star

“The faith that stands on authority is not faith.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Over-soul
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Faith

“Of what use is genius, if the organ is too convex or too concave and cannot find a focal distance within the actual horizon of human life?”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Life

“The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book The Conduct of Life

The Conduct of Life, Wealth
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Parting

“What potent blood hath modest May!”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

May-Day
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“The next thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

This sentence has no known source in Emerson's works, but its general sense does closely match the tenor of Emerson's essay "Quotation and Originality", in particular the sentence "Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it." (listed above).
Gow, Foundations for Human Engineering (1931) contains the following passage: "I have the backing of Emerson, for it was he, I believe, who said that the next thing to saying a good thing yourself, if to quote one". It is not clear whether Gow is purporting to quote Emerson verbatim, or merely to paraphrase his work.
Disputed

Quotes

“The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to his opinion twenty years later.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book The Conduct of Life

Culture http://books.google.com/books?id=uVYRAAAAYAAJ&q="The+measure+of+a+master+is+his+success+in+bringing+all+men+round+to+his+opinion+twenty+years+later"&pg=PA157#v=onepage
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)

Men , Success

“Every really able man, in whatever direction he work,—a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter,—if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Immortality
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Books, Letters and Social Aims http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=5&id=74&Itemid=149 (1876)

Sincerity

“None shall rule but the humble,
And none but Toil shall have.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Boston Hymn. 1863
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Life is our dictionary.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837)

Life

“All mankind love a lover.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Essays, First Series

Love , Lovers

“A man is a god in ruins.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source: 1830s, Nature http://www.emersoncentral.com/nature.htm (1836), Ch. 8, Prospects

God

“All men are poets at heart. ”

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men , Heart

“I call upon you, young men, to obey your heart, and be the nobility of this land. In every age of the world, there has been a leading nation, one of a more generous sentiment, whose eminent citizens were willing to stand for the interests of general justice and humanity, at the risk of being called, by the men of the moment, chimerical and fantastic. Which should be that nation but these States? Which should lead that movement, if not New England? Who should lead the leaders, but the Young American?”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, The Young American (1844)

Justice , Heart , Age , World

“We must have kings, and we must have nobles. Nature provides such in every society, — only let us have the real instead of the titular. Let us have our leading and our inspiration from the best. In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise. Let the powers be well directed, directed by love, and they would everywhere be greeted with joy and honor.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, The Young American (1844)

Nature , Joy , Love , Making love

“Our condition is like that of the poor wolves: if one of the flock wound himself, or so much as limp, the rest eat him up incontinently. That serene Power interposes the check upon the caprices and officiousness of our wills.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, The Young American (1844)

“Gentlemen, there is a sublime and friendly Destiny by which the human race is guided, — the race never dying, the individual never spared, — to results affecting masses and ages. Men are narrow and selfish, but the Genius or Destiny is not narrow, but beneficent. It is not discovered in their calculated and voluntary activity, but in what befalls, with or without their design. Only what is inevitable interests us, and it turns out that love and good are inevitable, and in the course of things. That Genius has infused itself into nature. It indicates itself by a small excess of good, a small balance in brute facts always favorable to the side of reason.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, The Young American (1844)

Selfishness , Nature , Age , Love

“How sincere and confidential we can be, saying all that lies in the mind, and yet go away feeling that all is yet unsaid, from the incapacity of the parties to know each other, although they use the same words! My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we go on from explanation to explanation until all is said which words can, and we leave matters just as they were at first, because of that vicious assumption. Is it that every man believes every other to be an incurable partialist, and himself a universalist? I talked yesterday with a pair of philosophers; I endeavored to show my good men that I love everything by turns and nothing long; that I loved the centre, but doated on the superficies; that I loved man, if men seemed to me mice and rats; that I revered saints, but woke up glad that the old pagan world stood its ground and died hard; that I was glad of men of every gift and nobility, but would not live in their arms. Could they but once understand that I loved to know that they existed, and heartily wished them God-speed, yet, out of my poverty of life and thought, had no word or welcome for them when they came to see me, and could well consent to their living in Oregon, for any claim I felt on them, — it would be a great satisfaction.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

God , Understanding , Speed , Sincerity

“If we cannot make voluntary and conscious steps in the admirable science of universals, let us see the parts wisely, and infer the genius of nature from the best particulars with a becoming charity. What is best in each kind is an index of what should be the average of that thing. Love shows me the opulence of nature, by disclosing to me in my friend a hidden wealth, and I infer an equal depth of good in every other direction. It is commonly said by farmers that a good pear or apple costs no more time or pains to rear than a poor one; so I would have no work of art, no speech, or action, or thought, or friend, but the best.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Science , Pain , Time , Wealth

“In the famous dispute with the Nominalists, the Realists had a good deal of reason. General ideas are essences. They are our gods: they round and ennoble the most partial and sordid way of living. Our proclivity to details cannot quite degrade our life, and divest it of poetry. The day-laborer is reckoned as standing at the foot of the social scale, yet he is saturated with the laws of the world. His measures are the hours; morning and night, solstice and equinox, geometry, astronomy, and all the lovely accidents of nature play through his mind. Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses. Property keeps the accounts of the world, and is always moral. The property will be found where the labor, the wisdom, and the virtue have been in nations, in classes, and (the whole life-time considered, with the compensations) in the individual also. How wise the world appears, when the laws and usages of nations are largely detailed, and the completeness of the municipal system is considered! Nothing is left out.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Money , God , Time , Night

“We are amphibious creatures, weaponed for two elements, having two sets of faculties, the particular and the catholic. We adjust our instrument for general observation, and sweep the heavens as easily as we pick out a single figure in the terrestrial landscape. We are practically skilful in detecting elements, for which we have no place in our theory, and no name. Thus we are very sensible of an atmospheric influence in men and in bodies of men, not accounted for in an arithmetical addition of all their measurable properties. There is a genius of a nation, which is not to be found in the numerical citizens, but which characterizes the society. England, strong, punctual, practical, well-spoken England, I should not find, if I should go to the island to seek it. In the parliament, in the playhouse, at dinner-tables, I might see a great number of rich, ignorant, book-read, conventional, proud men, — many old women, — and not anywhere the Englishman who made the good speeches, combined the accurate engines, and did the bold and nervous deeds. It is even worse in America, where, from the intellectual quickness of the race, the genius of the country is more splendid in its promise, and more slight in its performance.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Reading , Country , Strong , Books

“Our native love of reality joins with this experience to teach us a little reserve, and to dissuade a too sudden surrender to the brilliant qualities of persons. Young people admire talents or particular excellences; as we grow older, we value total powers and effects, as, the impression, the quality, the spirit of men and things. The genius is all. The man, — it is his system: we do not try a solitary word or act, but his habit. The acts which you praise, I praise not, since they are departures from his faith, and are mere compliances. The magnetism which arranges tribes and races in one polarity, is alone to be respected; the men are steel-filings.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Faith , Personality , People , Reality

“All persons exist to society by some shining trait of beauty or utility, which they have. We borrow the proportions of the man from that one fine feature, and finish the portrait symmetrically; which is false; for the rest of his body is small or deformed. I observe a person who makes a good public appearance, and conclude thence the perfection of his private character, on which this is based; but he has no private character. He is a graceful cloak or lay-figure for holidays. All our poets, heroes, and saints, fail utterly in some one or in many parts to satisfy our idea, fail to draw our spontaneous interest, and so leave us without any hope of realization but in our own future. Our exaggeration of all fine characters arises from the fact, that we identify each in turn with the soul. But there are no such men as we fable; no Jesus, nor Pericles, nor Caesar, nor Angelo, nor Washington, such as we have made. We consecrate a great deal of nonsense, because it was allowed by great men. There is none without his foible. I verily believe if an angel should come to chant the chorus of the moral law, he would eat too much gingerbread, or take liberties with private letters, or do some precious atrocity.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Soul , Drawing , Law , Personality

“That happens in the world, which we often witness in a public debate. Each of the speakers expresses himself imperfectly: no one of them hears much that another says, such is the preoccupation of mind of each; and the audience, who have only to hear and not to speak, judge very wisely and superiorly how wrongheaded and unskilful is each of the debaters to his own affair. Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, but symmetrical men never. When I meet a pure intellectual force, or a generosity of affection, I believe, here then is man; and am presently mortified by the discovery, that this individual is no more available to his own or to the general ends, than his companions; because the power which drew my respect, is not supported by the total symphony of his talents.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

World , Support , Men

“The man momentarily stands for the thought, but will not bear examination; and a society of men will cursorily represent well enough a certain quality and culture, for example, chivalry or beauty of manners, but separate them, and there is no gentleman and no lady in the group. The least hint sets us on the pursuit of a character, which no man realizes.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Beauty , Men

“I cannot often enough say, that a man is only a relative and representative nature. Each is a hint of the truth, but far enough from being that truth, which yet he quite newly and inevitably suggests to us. If I seek it in him, I shall not find it. Could any man conduct into me the pure stream of that which he pretends to be! Long afterwards, I find that quality elsewhere which he promised me.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Truth , Nature

“We think our civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star. In our barbarous society the influence of character is in its infancy.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Politics

Thinking , Star

“For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, or a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write down these cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though imperfect, become the songs of the nations. For nature is as truly beautiful as it is good, or as it is reasonable, and must as much appear, as it must be done, or be known. Words and deeds are quite indifferent modes of the divine energy. Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson Music

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), The Poet

Time , Indifference , Beauty , Nature

“Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance

World

“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Nature

Source: 1830s, Nature http://www.emersoncentral.com/nature.htm (1836), Ch. 1, Nature

God , Night , Light , Smile

“The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

25 May 1843
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)

“The two parties which divide the State, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made … Now one, now the other gets the day, and still the fight renews itself as if for the first time, under new names and hot personalities … Innovation is the salient energy; Conservatism the pause on the last movement.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Conservative, via Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Cycles of American History (Houghton Mifflin, 1986) p. 23

World , Personality , Fight , Time

“The poor, short lone fact dies at the birth. Memory catches it up into her heaven, and bathes it in immortal waters.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Water , Birth , Memory

“Plato was synthesis of Europe and Asia, and a decidedly Oriental element pervades his philosophy, giving it a sunrise color.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source: Abhedananda, Swami India and her people, a study in the social. political, educational and religious conditians of India. [6th ed.] Calcutta, Ramakrishna Vedanta Math [1945]

Color

“I find men victims of illusions in all parts oflife. Children, youths, adults and old men, all are led by one bauble or another. Yoganidra, the goddess of illusion, is stronger than the Titans, stronger than Apollo.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source: In his essay Illusions, quoted in Gokhale, Balkrishna Govind India in the American mind Bombay: PopularPrakashan, 1992.

Children , Youth , Parting , Men

“The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Comic
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Books, Letters and Social Aims http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=5&id=74&Itemid=149 (1876)

Men

“Slavery is disheartening; but Nature is not so helpless but it can rid itself of every last wrong. But the spasms of nature are centuries and ages and will tax the faith of short-lived men. Slowly, slowly the Avenger comes, but comes surely. The proverbs of the nations affirm these delays, but affirm the arrival. They say, "God may consent, but not forever."”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The delay of the Divine Justice — this was the meaning and soul of the Greek Tragedy, — this was the soul of their religion.
"The Fugitive Slave Law", a lecture in New York City (7 March 1854), The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1904), p. 238

God , Faith , Nature , Age

“Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone; yet he is no more to be credited with the grand result than the acaleph which adds a cell to the coral reef which is the basis of the continent.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Quotation and Originality

“There is a crack in every thing God has made.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/11/16/light/
Context: Siegfried, in the Nibelungen, is not quite immortal, for a leaf fell on his back whilst he was bathing in the Dragon’s blood, and that spot which it covered is mortal. And so it always is. There is a crack in every thing God has made.

God

“Life is a progress, and not a station.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life

“Our distrust is very expensive.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Skill to do comes of doing.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Light