Ralph Waldo Emerson citations

“Qu’est-ce qu’une herbe? Une plante dont les vertus n’ont pas encore été découvertes […].”

“Le premier secret du succès est la confiance en soi, la conviction que si vous êtes là, c’est que les pouvoirs de l’Univers vous y ont mis avec un motif, une tâche qui vous est strictement assignée de par votre constitution, et qu’aussi longtemps que vous y travaillerez, vous vous trouverez bien et réussirez.”

“Chaque minute que vous êtes en colère, vous perdez soixante secondes de bonheur.”

“Construisez donc votre propre monde.”

“Écrivez dans votre cœur que chaque jour est le meilleur jour de l'année.”

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

“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.”

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”

“Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.”

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”

“When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, your're the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.”

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

“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”

“The sun shines today also.”

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

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

“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”

“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.”

“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.”

“You can never do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

“Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.”

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

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

“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.”

“The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”

“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”

“Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house, a world; and beyond its world a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you: build, therefore, your own world.”

“There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.”

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

“Life is to be lived, not controlled.”

“There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.”