Ralph Waldo Emerson: Goodness (page 2)
Ralph Waldo Emerson was American philosopher, essayist, and poet. Explore interesting quotes on goodness.“Your goodness must have some edge to it -- else it is none.”
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Variant: Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, — else it is none.
Source: Culture, Behavior, Beauty, Books, Art, Eloquence, Power, Wealth, Illusions
Context: 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. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company.
Source: 1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
“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)
February 1855
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Politics
1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837)
“Good bye, proud world! I'm going home;
Thou art not my friend; I am not thine.”
Good Bye
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: Good bye, proud world! I'm going home;
Thou art not my friend; I am not thine.
Give All to Love http://www.emersoncentral.com/poems/give_all_to_love.htm, st. 1
1840s, Poems (1847)
The Conduct of Life, Chapter 4, “Culture,” p. 145
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Quotation and Originality
Each and All
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.