Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 136

• My life is superficial, takes no root in the deep world; I ask, When shall I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeinga Universe which I do not use? I wish to exchange this flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight, this fever-glow for a benign climate.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Responsibility, Roots, Perception

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.485

  4 Copy quote

• Yourself a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost, cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Hands, Firsts

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1838). “An Address Delivered Before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, 15 July, 1838”, p.27

  6 Copy quote

• I find nothing healthful or exalting in the smooth conventions of society. I do not like the close air of saloons. I begin to suspect myself to be a prisoner, though treated with all this courtesy and luxury. I pay a destructive tax in my conformity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Air, Luxury, Pay

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.280, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

• I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward.Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the Spartan fife.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Consistency, Dinner, Lasts

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.134, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

• We pray to be conventional. But the wary Heaven takes care you shall not be, if there is anything good in you. Dante was very badcompany, and was never invited to dinner.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Heaven, Care, Dinner

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.282, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Every act of the man inscribes itself in the memories of his fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is full of sounds;the sky, of tokens; the ground is all memoranda and signatures; and every object covered over with hints, which speak to the intelligent.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Memories, Intelligent, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.191

  4 Copy quote

• But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Pain, Play, Ill

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.150, Graphic Arts Books

  4 Copy quote

• I am primarily engaged to myself to be a public servant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all men that there is intelligence andgood will at the heart of all things, and even higher and yet higher leadings. These are my engagements; how can your law further or hinder me in what I shall do to men?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Heart, Men, Law

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.175, Рипол Классик

  4 Copy quote

• In my dealing with my child, my Latin and Greek, my accomplishments and my money stead me nothing; but as much soul as I have avails. If I am wilful, he sets his will against mine, one for one, and leaves me, if I please, the degradation of beating him by my superiority of strength. But if I renounce my will, and act for the soul, setting that up as umpire between us two, out of his young eyes looks the same soul; he reveres and loves with me.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Latin, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.168, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be organized. Man's culture can spare nothing, wants all material. He is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Evil, Enemy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.88, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

• Culture is the suggestion, from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities through which he can modulate the violence of any master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor him against himself. Culture redresses this imbalance, puts him among equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Solitude, Suggestions

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.388

  4 Copy quote

• Society cannot do without cultivated men. As soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher wants become imperative.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Society, Culture

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.15, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

  4 Copy quote

• Not out of those, on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature, out of terrible Druids and Berserkirs, come at last Alfred and Shakespeare.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Giants, Savages

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.83, Harvard University Press

  10 Copy quote

• I think that the heroism which at this day would make on us the impression of Epaminondas and Phocion must be that of a domestic conqueror. He who shall bravely and gracefully subdue this Gorgon of Convention and Fashion, and show men how to lead a clean, handsome and heroic life amid the beggarly elements of our cities and villages; whoso shall teach me how to eat my meat and take my repose and deal with men, without any shame following, will restore the life of man to splendor, and make his own name dear to all history.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fashion, Men, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• Let the man stand on his feet. Let religion cease to be occasional; and the pulses of thought that go to the borders of the universe, let them proceed from the bosom of the Household.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Feet, Pulse

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.109, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

  4 Copy quote

• The household is a school of power. There, within the door, learn the tragi-comedy of human life.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  School, Power, Doors

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2738, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

• If you follow the suburban fashion in building a sumptuous- looking house for a little money, it will appear to all eyes as a cheap, dear house.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fashion, Money, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.403

  4 Copy quote

• In every landscape, the point of astonishment is the meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the first hillock aswell as from the top of the Alleghanies. The stars at night stoop down over the brownest, homeliest common, with all the spiritual magnificence which they shed on the Campagna, or on the marble deserts of Egypt.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Spiritual, Stars, Night

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.454, Modern Library

  4 Copy quote

• The population of the world is a conditional population; these are not the best, but the best that could live in the existing state of soils, gases, animals, and morals: the best that could yet live; there shall be a better, please God.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Animal, Progress, Population

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.297

  4 Copy quote

• It is vain to keep a secret from one who has a right to know it. It will tell itself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Secret, Vain, Knows

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1317, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

• The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity with nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Lying, Spring, Moving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume II”, p.410

  4 Copy quote

• The only sin is limitation. As soon as you once come up with a man's limitations, it is all over with him. Has he talents? has heenterprise? has he knowledge? It boots not. Infinitely alluring and attractive was he to you yesterday, a great hope, a sea to swim in; now, you have found his shores, found it a pond, and you care not if you never see it again.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friends, Men, Sea

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.406, Library of America

  4 Copy quote

• There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Self, Mind

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.237, Library of America

  4 Copy quote

• Physical force has no value, where there is nothing else. Snow in snow-banks, fire in volcanoes and solfataras is cheap. The luxury of ice is in tropical countries, and midsummer days. The luxury of fire is, to have a little on our hearth; and of electricity, not the volleys of the charged cloud, but the manageable stream on the battery-wires. So of spirit, or energy; the rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the cannibals in the Pacific.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Men, Fire

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2282, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Henry David Thoreau

Walt Whitman

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Margaret Fuller

Emily Dickinson

Edgar Allan Poe

Herman Melville

Ralph Ellison