Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Culture

• These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Reality, Self, Names

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.42, 谷月社

• Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season, that he is born into the state of war, and that the commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self- collected, and neither defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his behaviour.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Weed, War, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.74, 谷月社

• Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind; and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Keys, Justice

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.16, Graphic Arts Books

• No performance is worth loss of geniality. 'Tis a cruel price we pay for certain fancy goods called fine arts and philosophy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Kindness, Philosophy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.366

• We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Justice, Diversity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.545, Рипол Классик

• A cheerful intelligent face is the end of culture, and success enough. For it indicates the purpose of Nature and wisdom attained.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Happiness, Success, Wisdom

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.656, Modern Library

• Culture is one thing and varnish is another.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Other Cultures, Culture, One Thing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.324, Courier Corporation

• Culture opens the sense of beauty.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, Culture

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1875). “Culture, Behavior, Beauty”, p.37

• It the proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Simplicity, Culture, Matter

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1875). “Culture, Behavior, Beauty”, p.95

• Who makes and keeps the Jew or the Negro base, who but you, who exclude them from the rights which others enjoy?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Rights, Justice, Diversity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Lee Grossman (2005). “A Year with Emerson: A Daybook”, p.61, David R. Godine Publisher

• 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.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Justice, Diversity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert J. Von Frank (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Poetry”, p.8, Harvard University Press

• God said, I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more; Up to my ear this morning brings The outrage of the poor.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Morning, Kings, Tired

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert J. Von Frank (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Poetry”, p.171, Harvard University Press

• What is a man born for but to be a reformer, a remaker of what has been made, a denouncer of lies, a restorer of truth and good?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Lying, Men, Justice

• Culture implies all which gives the mind possession of its own powers, as languages to the critic, telescope to the astronomer. Culture alters the political status of an individual. It raises a rival royalty in a monarchy. 'Tis king against king. It is ever a romance of history in all dynasties--the co-presence of the revolutionary force in intellect. It creates a personal independence which the monarch cannot look down, and to which he must often succumb.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Kings, Giving, Romance

• A man is the prisoner of his power. A topical memory makes him an almanac; a talent for debate, disputant; skill to get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar. Culture reduces these inflammations by invoking the aid of other powers against the dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers. It watches success.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Memories, Power, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.363

• Sanity consists in not being subdued by your means. Fancy prices are paid for position, and for the culture of talent, but to thegrand interests, superficial success is of no account.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Success, Mean, Fancy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.427

• As thinkers, mankind has ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness; the first class beginning to think from the data of the senses, the second class perceive that the senses are not final and say, The senses give us representations of things, but what are the things themselves, they cannot tell. The materialist insists on facts, on history, on the force of circumstances and the animal wants of man; the idealists on the power of Thought and Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on individual culture.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspiration, Men, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.4265, Delphi Classics

• The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral sentiment.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Foundation, Culture

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2630, Delphi Classics

• It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascinationfor all educated Americans.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Travel, Egypt, Self

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.180, Harvard University Press

• Whilst all the world is in pursuit of power, culture corrects the theory of success.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Success, Culture, World

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.363

• A man should have a farm or a mechanical craft for his culture. We must have a basis for our higher accomplishments, our delicate entertainments of poetry and philosophy, in the work of our hands.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Philosophy, Men, Hands

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1166, Delphi Classics

• It is the property of the religious spirit to be the most refining of all influences. No external advantages, no culture of the tastes, no habit of command, no association with the elegant, or even depth of affection, can bestow that delicacy and that grandeur of bearing which belong only to the mind accustomed to celestial conversation,--all else is but gilt and cosmetics, beside this, as expressed in every look and gesture.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Mind, Religion

• He only is a well-made man who has a good determination. And the end of culture is not to destroy this, God forbid! but to train away all impediment and mixture and leave nothing but pure power.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Determination, Power, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.71, Harvard University Press

• Let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Sea, America

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.112, Harvard University Press

• The land is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our culture. The continent we inhabit is to be physic andfood for our mind, as well as our body. The land, with its tranquilizing, sanative influences, is to repair the errors of a scholastic and traditional education, and bring us to just relations with men and things.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Land, Errors

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.214, Library of America

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