Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
Variant: It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Context: These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.
This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself, unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few texts, on a few lives. We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see, —painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand them, and are willing to let the words go; for, at any time, they can use words as good when occasion comes. If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. When we have new perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn.
“One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.”
Variant: There is creative reading as well as creative writing.
As reported by Quoteinvestigator on January 11, 2011 http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/01/11/what-lies-within/ the quote appeared in “Meditations in Wall Street” (1940) by Wall Street trader Henry Stanley Haskins, "a Wall Street trader with a checkered background. The phrase was misattributed because the true author's name was initially withheld. In addition, the assignment of the maxim to a more prestigious individual, e.g., Emerson or Thoreau, made it more attractive and more believable as a nugget of wisdom." Emerson made a number of similar statements — in "The American Scholar," for example, he says "Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds" — which probably increased the likelihood of misattribution.
Misattributed
Variant: What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Variant: What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
“To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.”
20 December 1822
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), History
Hamatreya
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?”
Works and Days
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837)
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), History
Merlin I http://www.emersoncentral.com/poems/merlin_i.htm, st. 2
1840s, Poems (1847)
Letter to Thomas Carlyle (30 October 1841)
“Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.”
Give all to Love
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.”
Quotation and Originality
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.”
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Civilization
“Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.”
Letters and Social Aims, Quotation and Originality
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Social Aims
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Books, Letters and Social Aims http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=5&id=74&Itemid=149 (1876)
“Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.”
Considerations by the Way
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)
Beauty
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)
" First Visit to England http://www.emersoncentral.com/first_visit_england.htm" in English Traits http://www.emersoncentral.com/english.htm (1856)
Woonotes II, st. 7
1840s, Poems (1847)
“None believeth in the soul of man, but only in some man or person old and departed.”
The Divinity College Address (1838)
February 1855
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)
“Nor mourn the unalterable Days
That Genius goes and Folly stays.”
In Memoriam E.B.E. http://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=l&p=c&a=p&ID=20607&c=323, st. 9
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“The world is his, who has money to go over it.”
Wealth
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)
June 15, 1844
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)
“In the vaunted works of Art
The master-stroke is Nature's part. 5.”
Art
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: In the vaunted works of Art
The master-stroke is Nature's part. 5.
Nature, Addresses and Lectures. The American Scholar
1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837)
Variant: If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. 6.
“Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.”
Source: 1830s, Nature http://www.emersoncentral.com/nature.htm (1836), Ch. 4, Language
“Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes itself whilst we are preparing to live.”
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Prudence
“Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty.”
Walter Savage Landor http://www.emersoncentral.com/walter_savage_landor.htm, from The Dial, XII (1841)
1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), New England Reformers
Solution http://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=l&p=c&a=p&ID=20586&c=323, l. 35-42
1860s, May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)
