Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
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United States! the ages plead, - Present and Past in under-song, - Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.
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If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again.
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What is there in 'Paradise Lost' to elevate and astonish like Herschel or Somerville?
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Why should we make account of time, or of magnitude, or of figure? The soul knows how to play with them as a young child plays with graybeards and in churches.
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Nature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the fruit of his character.
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Every ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in.
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I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.
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All that Shakespeare says of the king, yonder slip of a boy that reads in the corner feels to be true of himself.
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Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments.
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I fancy I need more than another to speak (rather than write), with such a formidable tendency to the lapidary style. I build my house of boulders.
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History must be this or it is nothing. Every law which the state enacts indicates a fact in human nature; that is all. We must in ourselves see the necessary reason of every fact, - see how it could and must be.
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The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
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For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?
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I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom.
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Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
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Do not yet see, that, if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.
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There are two classes of poets - the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love.
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A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.
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Hast thou named all the birds without a gun; Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk.
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The first wealth is health.
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Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.
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Only the great generalizations survive. The sharp words of the Declaration of Independence, lampooned then and since as 'glittering generalities,' have turned out blazing ubiquities that will burn forever and ever.
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Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only disease; all others run into this one.
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The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it.