Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 68

• Spoons and skimmers you can be undistinguishably together; but vases and statues require each a pedestal for itself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Equality, Together, Pedestal

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• Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of country and religion,not as painfully accumulated, atom after atom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but as one vast picture, which God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of the soul.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Country, Past

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.60, Harvard University Press

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• With each divine impulse the mind rends the thin rinds of the visible and finite, and comes out into eternity, and inspires and expires its air. It converses with truths that have always been spoken in the world, and becomes conscious of a closer sympathy with Zeno and Arrian, than with persons in the house.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Air, House, Inspire

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2006). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems”, p.180, Bantam Classics

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• The true thrift is always to spend on the higher plane; to invest and invest, with keener avarice, that he may spend in spiritualcreation, and not in augmenting animal existence. Nor is the man enriched, in repeating the old experiments of animal sensation; nor unless through new powers and ascending pleasures he knows himself by the actual experience of higher good to be already on the way to the highest.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Money, Animal, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.362

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• Wild liberty develops iron conscience. Want of liberty, by strengthening law and decorum, stupefies conscience.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Law, Iron

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays, second series”, p.124, Harvard University Press

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• The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant's economy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Money, Law, Soul

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.381

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• If there be any man who thinks the ruin of a race of men a small matter, compared with the last decoration and completions of hisown comfort,--who would not so much as part with his ice- cream, to save them from rapine and manacles, I think I must not hesitate to satisfy that man that also his cream and vanilla are safer and cheaper by placing the negro nation on a fair footing than by robbing them.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Thinking, Ice Cream

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.754, Modern Library

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• If any mention was made of homicide, madness, adultery, and intolerable tortures, we would let the church-bells ring louder, the church-organ swell its peal and drown the hideous sound. The sugar they raised was excellent: nobody tasted blood in it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Church Bells, Blood, Sound

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.277, Harvard University Press

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• The subject is said to have the property of making dull men eloquent.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Slavery, Dull

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1233, Delphi Classics

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• Give the slave the least elevation of religious sentiment, and he is not slave: you are the slave: he not only in his humility feels his superiority, feels that much deplored condition of his to be a fading trifle, but he makes you feel it too. He is the master.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Humility, Giving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.258

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• It is not what talents or genius a man has, but how he is to his talents, that constitutes friendship and character. The man thatstands by himself, the universe stands by him also.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Men, Genius

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.417

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• A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents. A transcendent talent draws so largely on his forces as tolame him; a defect pays him revenues on the other side.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Pay, Sides

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.333

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• Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue and they will do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Opportunity, Doors, Hands

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.631, Modern Library

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• The uses of travel are occasional, and short; but the best fruit it finds, when it finds it, is conversation; and this is a main function of life.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Travel, Use, Fruit

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.459

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• Our life seems not present, so much as prospective; not for the affairs on which it is wasted, but as a hint of this vast- flowingvigor.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hints, Affair, Our Lives

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.212, Penguin

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• Necessity does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it seems heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Giving, Judging, Doe

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.237

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• For the time of towns is tolled from the world by funereal chimes, but in nature the universal hours are counted by succeeding tribes of animals and plants, and by growth of joy on joy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Time, Animal, Joy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.86, Coyote Canyon Press

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• Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. When that has educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness,to grace, the steps of the dancing-master are better forgotten; so painting teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form, and as I see many pictures and higher genius in the art, I see the boundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dance, Art, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Jean Ferguson Carr (1987). “The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.212, Harvard University Press

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• Bring me wine, but wine which never grew
  In the belly of the grape

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wine, Grapes, Grew

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1979). “Emerson's Literary Criticism”, p.71, U of Nebraska Press

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• Of immortality, the soul, when well employed, is incurious. It is so well, that it is sure that it will be well. It asks no questions of the Supreme Power.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Soul, Immortality, Wells

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2356, Delphi Classics

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• We learn that God IS; that he is in me; and that all things are shadows of him.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Shadow, All Things

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.70, Penguin

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• The soul lets no man go without some visitations and holy-days of a diviner presence.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Men, Holy Days

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1528, Delphi Classics

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• As every pool reflects the image of the sun, so every thought and thing restores us an image and creature of the supreme Good. Theuniverse is perforated by a million channels for his activity. All things mount and mount.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Sun, Pool

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.342

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• Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Book, Simple

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.176, Harvard University Press

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• There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Power, Ends

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.63, Penguin

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