Ralph Waldo Quotes

• A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Greatness, Mind

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2001). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1843 - 1871”, p.136, University of Georgia Press

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• The ancestor of every action is a thought. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  David Allen

  Action, Waldo Emerson, Ancestor Worship

  David Allen (2015). “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”, p.35, Penguin

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• Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

  Paul Hawken

  Inspirational, Life, Religious

  "You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring". Paul Hawken's commencement speech at University of Portland in Oregon, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 2, 2014.

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• Sandra Day O'Connor - once she said that there are - there were no public schools in America until the 18th century, and she overlooked my alma mater because we started - I say we - in 1635. And among the people who went there - and they're on - the walls in the auditorium, the names are: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, except he split when he was 10 years old to go to work.

  Nat Hentoff

  Wall, School, Years

  Source: thedailyhatch.org

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• I pretend no originality in observing that mass education was motivated in part by the perceived need to "educate them to keep them from our throats," to borrow Ralph Waldo Emerson's parody of elite fears that inspired early advocates of public mass education.

  Noam Chomsky

  Needs, Originality, Inspired

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• What a new face courage puts on everything. - Ralph Waldo Emerson To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Wisdom, Years, Hopeful

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• The landscape belongs to the person who looks at it..." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Looks, Landscape

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• Prayer that craves a particular commodity—anything less than all good, is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Mean, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.81, Cosimo, Inc.

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• For character, to prepare for the inevitable I recommend selections from [Ralph Waldo] Emerson. His writings have done for me far more than all other reading.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Reading, Character, Writing

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• When [Ralph Waldo] Emerson visited Thoreau in jail and asked, 'What are you doing in there?' it was reported that Thoreau replied, 'What are you doing out there?'

  Howard Zinn

  Jail, Waldo Emerson

  Howard Zinn (2015). “A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present”, p.156, Routledge

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• Dreams require down payments. Dreams are free, but the journey isn't. There is a price to pay. First, you must pay the price of dealing with criticism from people who matter. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 'Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.' Second, you must pay the price of overcoming your fears. Failure, rejection, and looking foolish are common fears - but they are just feelings that can be conquered and removed from your thoughts. Finally, you must be willing to pay the price of hard work in order to realize your dream.

  John C. Maxwell

  Dream, Hard Work, Journey

  FaceBook post by John C. Maxwell from Jun 09, 2014

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• I have not, in general, much belief in the ability of woman as a creative artist. Unwritten lyrics, as [Ralph Waldo] Emerson said once when we conversed on this subject, should be her forte.

  Fredrika Bremer

  Artist, Creative, Belief

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• In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs. RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks Greek architecture is the perfect flowering of geometry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Notebook, Morning, Men

  "Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1847-1848". Book by Ralph Waldo Emerson (p. 384), 1973.

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• He had gone to the higher Sierras... [about Ralph Waldo Emerson's death]

  John Muir

  Gone, Waldo Emerson, Higher

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• Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough for literature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Reading, Men, Literature

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• Dad said I would always be "high minded and low waged" from reading too much Ralph Waldo Emerson. Maybe he was right.

  Jim Harrison

  Dad, Reading, Too Much

  Jim Harrison (2009). “The English Major: A Novel”, p.8, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get your emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day and as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 'Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm,' to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality.

  Jim Valvano

  Dream, Laughter, Hard Work

  Arthur Ashe Courage Award Acceptance Address, delivered 3 March 1993

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• When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can’t make them change if they don’t want to, just like when they do want to, you can’t stop them. “A man is what he thinks about all day long.” [Ralph Waldo Emerson] Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting. Aldous Huxley

  Andy Warhol

  Men, Thinking, Long

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• President Heber J. Grant often quoted the following statement, which is sometimes attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson: “That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do-not that the nature of the thing is changed, but that our power to do is increased.'

  Heber J. Grant

  President, Sometimes, Waldo Emerson

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• Beware of charisma . . . Representative Men; was Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1850 phrase for the great men in a democracy . . . Is there some common quality among these Representative Men who have been most successful as our leaders? I call it the need to be authentic-or, as our dictionaries tell us, conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance or belief. While the charismatic has an uncanny outside source of strength, the authentic is strong because he is what he seems to be.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Strong, Successful, Men

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• The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands. The average man ought to be allowed a quotation of no less than three sentences, one to make his statement and two to explain what he meant. Ralph Waldo Emerson was about the only one who could stand having his utterances broken up into sentence quotations, and every once in a while even he doesn’t sound so sensible in short snatches.

  Robert Benchley

  Men, Average, Two

  Robert Benchley (1951). “My ten years in a quandary and how they grew”

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