Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 80

• A cultivated man, wise to know and bold to perform, is the end to which nature works.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Men, Ends

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.343

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• Man is physical as well as metaphysical, a thing of shreds and patches, borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors, and a misfit from the start.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Misfits, Metaphysical

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.202, Graphic Arts Books

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• The Englishman who has lost his fortune is said to have died of a broken heart.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sarcastic, Heart, Broken

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.68

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• A scholar is a man with his inconvenience, that, when you ask him his opinion of any matter, he must go home and look up his manuscripts to know.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Home, Men, Looks

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

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• Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Age, Reform, Opinion

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

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• Nature is no spendthrift, but takes the shortest way to her ends.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Way, Environment

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2268, Delphi Classics

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• Is there a difference? Yes. We are in harmony with nature, but never at peace.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Peace, Differences, Harmony

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• The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Men, Weak Points

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1808). “Select Essays and Poems”, p.20

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• It is not the irregular hours or irregular diet that makes the romantic life.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hours, Romantic Life, Diets

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• The sanity of society is a balance of a thousand insanity's.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Insanity, Balance, Psychological

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• Every man is an infinitely repelling orb, and holds his individual being on that condition.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Orbs, Psychological

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

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• The most active lives have so much routine as to preclude progress almost equally with the most inactive.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Progress, Routine, Evolution

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred R. Ferguson (1965). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume V: 1835-1838”, p.274, Harvard University Press

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• Who does not sometimes envy the good and the brave, who are no more to suffer from the tumults of the natural world, and await with curious complacency the speedy term of his own conversation with finite nature?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Courage, Envy, Brave

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1367, Delphi Classics

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• If your friend has displeased you, you shall not sit down to consider it, for he has already lost all memory of the passage, and has doubled his power to serve you, and, ere you can rise up again, will burden you with blessings.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Memories, Blessing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1456, Delphi Classics

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• A divine person is the prophecy of the mind; a friend is the hope of the heart.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Hope, Heart

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.507, Library of America

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• A friend is Janus-faced: he looks to the past and the future. He is the child of all my foregoing hours, the prophet of those to come, and the harbinger of a greater friend.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Children, Future

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1347, Delphi Classics

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• We over-estimate the conscience of our friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature finer, his temptations less. Everything that is his,--his name, his form, his dress, books, and instruments,--fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds new and larger from his mouth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Book, Names

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.90

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• In the last analysis, love is only the reflection of a man's own worthiness from other men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, Friendship, Reflection

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.51, Coyote Canyon Press

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• Our relations to each other are oblique and casual.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Casual, Relation

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.473, Library of America

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• Almost all people descend to meet. All association must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures disappears as they approach each other.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beautiful, Flower, People

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1340, Delphi Classics

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• My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we go on from explanation to explanation, until all is said that words can, and we leave matters just as they were at first, because of that vicious assumption.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Understanding, Goes On, Matter

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays: First and Second Series”, p.399, Library of America

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• Every word we speak is million-faced or convertible to an indefinite number of applications. If it were not so we could read no book. Your remark would only fit your case, not mine.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Reading, Numbers

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1841-1843”, p.157, Harvard University Press

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• The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  History, Records, Gains

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.266, Harvard University Press

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• There are many faculties in man, each of which takes its turn of activity, and that faculty which is paramount in any period and exerts itself through the strongest nation, determines the civility of that age: and each age thinks its own the perfection of reason.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Thinking, Civilization

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1243, Delphi Classics

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• All inquiry into antiquity, all curiosity respecting the Pyramids, the excavated cities, Stonehenge, the Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis,--is the desire to do away this wild, savage, and preposterous There and Then, and introduce in its place the Here and Now.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Ohio, Cities, Circles

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2006). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems”, p.133, Bantam Classics

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