“Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.”

—  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Success
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 12, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good." by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson 727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882

Related quotes

“Why is it the songs all end with the good people winning, but in life they don't?"
They don't make songs when the good lose," I muttered. "They make war chants against the bad. So there won't be any songs for us.”

Sherwood Smith book Crown Duel

Source: Crown Duel

Jean Tinguely photo

“Be yourself by growing above yourself. Don’t stand in your own way. Let us change with, and not against, movement. Then we shall be static and shall not decompose. Then there will be neither good nor evil, neither beauty nor unsightliness, neither truth nor falsehood. Conceptions are fixations. If we stand still, we block our own path, and we are confronted with our own controversies.”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

reprinted in 'Zero', ed. Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, Cambridge, Mass; MIT Press 1973, p. 119
Quotes, 1960's, untitled statements in 'Zero 3', (1961)

Thomas Jackson photo

“Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; waste nothing.”

Thomas Jackson (1824–1863) Confederate general

Misattributed, Jackson's personal book of maxims

Brandon Sanderson photo

“We remember the good times and the bad ones, forgetting that most times are neither good nor bad. They just are.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

“I just think of things as beautiful or not. Can't you understand? I don't think of good or bad. Just of beautiful or ugly. I think a lot of nice things are ugly and a lot of nasty things are beautiful.”

John Fowles book The Collector

Source: The Collector

M. K. Hobson photo

“Dignity is like morality,” Mirabilis barked. “Too much is as bad as too little.”

M. K. Hobson book The Native Star

Source: The Native Star (2010), Chapter 20, “The Otherwhere Marble” (p. 274)

Amy Lee photo

“I cry a lot-I don't know why, but it just helps me. I cry over bad and good stuff-sometimes sadness can be beautiful”

Amy Lee (1981) American singer-songwriter and pianist

“Say nothing good of yourself, you will be distrusted; say nothing bad of yourself, you will be taken at your word.”

Joseph Roux (1834–1905) French poet

Part 5, XXII
Meditations of a Parish Priest (1866)

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Earliest attribution found in Who Said That?: More than 2,500 Usable Quotes and Illustrations https://books.google.nl/books?id=7mn8AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT63 (1995) by George Sweeting. Online sources always attribute the quote to Augustine, but never specify in which of his works it is to be found.
Disputed

Related topics