Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
-
A good symbol is the best argument, and is a missionary to persuade thousands.
-
The measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The greatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstance.
-
Poetry teaches the enormous force of a few words, and, in proportion to the inspiration, checks loquacity.
-
A masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant or a crystal.
-
And with Cæsar to take in his hand the army, the empire, and Cleopatra, and say, 'All these will I relinquish if you will show me the fountain of the Nile.'
-
The cup of life is not so shallow That we have drained the best That all the wine at once we swallow And lees make all the rest.
-
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
-
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun; Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk.
-
Those who are esteemed umpires of taste are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual.
-
England’s genius filled all measure Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure, Gave to the mind its emperor, And life was larger than before: Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare’s wit. The men who lived with him became Poets, for the air was fame.
-
The world is his, who has money to go over it.
-
I like a church, I like a cowl, I love a prophet of the soul, And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles; Yet not for all his faith can see, Would I that cowled churchman be. Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure?
-
Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.
-
Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.
-
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.
-
Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.
-
Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth, his hall the azure dome.
-
Each the herald is who wrote His rank, and quartered his own coat. There is no king nor sovereign state That can fix a hero's rate.
-
Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.
-
The music that can deepest reach, And cure all ill, is cordial speech.
-
Give all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good fame, Plans, credit, and the muse; Nothing refuse.
-
For nature beats in perfect tune, And rounds with rhyme her every rune, Whether she work in land or sea, Or hide underground her alchemy. Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, Or dip thy paddle in the lake, But it carves the bow of beauty there, And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake.
-
If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. 6.
-
The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.