Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
US essayist & poet
A friend is one
before whom I may think aloud.
A hero is no braver
than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.
A man of genius is
privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as
insupportable as any
other dullness.
All I have seen
teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
All our progress is
an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an
opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust
the
instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
As we grow old…the
beauty steals inward.
Be not the slave of
your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so
you
shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced
experience
that shall explain and overlook the old.
Beware when the great
God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
Character is higher
than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to
think.
Colleges hate
geniuses, just as convents hate saints.
Conversation is an
art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that
which
all are practicing every day while they live.
Democracy becomes a
government of bullies tempered by editors.
Do not go where the
path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Don't be too timid
and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more
experiments you make the better.
Don't waste yourself
in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the
good.
Every great and
commanding moment in the annals of the world is the triumph of some
enthusiasm.
Every hero
becomes a
bore at last.
Every sweet has its
sour; every evil its good.
Finish each day and
be done with it. You have done what you could.
Give all to love;
obey thy heart.
God enters by a
private door into every individual.
He has not learned
the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.
I awoke this morning
with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.
I hate quotations.
Tell me what you know.
I pack my trunk,
embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples,
and there
beside me is the Stern Fact, the Sad Self, unrelenting, identical, that
I fled
from.
If I have lost
confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.
Insist
on yourself; never imitate... Every great man is unique.
Let not a man guard
his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.
Live in the sunshine,
swim the sea, drink the wild air…
Make the most of
yourself, for that is all there is of you.
Make yourself
necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.
Money, which
represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors
without
an apology, is
in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.
Nature magically
suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.
No great man ever
complains of want of opportunity.
None of us will ever
accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to
this
whisper
which is heard by him alone.
Nothing can bring you
peace but yourself.
Nothing
great was
ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Nothing is at last
sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Our chief want in
life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.
Our knowledge is the
amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.
People seem not to
see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their
character.
Shallow men believe
in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
That which we persist
in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier,
but that
our ability to
perform it has improved.
The adventitious
beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given
in a
happy quotation
than in the poem.
The ancestor of every
action is a thought.
The end of the human
race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
The essence
of all
jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness;
a non
performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same
time that
one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the
intellect, is
comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.
The key to
every man
is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which
he
obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He
can only
be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.
The life of
man is
the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the
imagination a higher joy than any fiction.
The louder
he talked
of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
The measure of a
master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty
years
later.
The only gift is a
portion of thyself.
The only way to have
a friend is to be one.
The ornament of a
house is the friends who frequent it.
The peril of every
fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is
commonly developed
at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the
mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth,
ambition
for greatest, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.
The world belongs to
the energetic.
There are many things
of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.
There is no den in
the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of
glass.
Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground,
such as
reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and
squirrel.
This time, like all
times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
Those who cannot tell
what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite
thoughts
and vast wishes.
Tis the good
reader
that makes the good book.
Trust your
instinct
to the end, though you can render no reason.
Truth is beautiful,
without doubt; but so are lies.
We do what we must,
and call it by the best names.
What
you do speaks so
loud that I cannot hear what you say.
When you strike at a
king, you must kill him.
Whoever is open,
loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanor; honorable himself, and in
his judgment
of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God
and
man....such a man is a true gentleman.
Whoso would be a man
must be a nonconformist.
Work and acquire, and
thou hast chained the wheel of Chance.
In every work of
genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us
with a
certain alienated majesty.
Speak what
you think
today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard
words
again, though it contradict every thing you said today.
Nothing astonishes
men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
Finish each
day and
be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and
absurdities no
doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day;
begin it
well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your
old
nonsense.
What lies behind us
and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within
us.
He who is in
love is
wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the
object
beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which
it
possesses.
Trust men and they
will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves
great.
Immortality.
I notice
that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I
hate
quotation.
Tell me what you know.
When a whole nation
is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the
cleanness of its
hands and purity of its heart.
The best effect of
fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
Next to the
originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.
In the highest
civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once
known its
satisfactions is
provided with a resource against calamity.
Wit makes its own
welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force
of
character,
can make any stand against good wit.
The bitterest tragic
element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief
in a
brute Fate or Destiny.
Men are conservatives
when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are
conservatives after dinner.
In every work of
genius we see our own rejected thoughts.
It is easy in the
world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live
after
our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps
with
perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
A foolish
consistency
is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and
philosophers
and divines.
As soon as there is
life there is danger.
A man builds
a fine
house; and now he has a master, and a task for life; he is to furnish,
watch,
show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.
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