Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
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The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out.
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Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.
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If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. 6.
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Nature paints the best part of a picture, carves the best parts of the statue, builds the best part of the house, and speaks the best part of the oration.
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Announced by all the trumpets of the sky Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
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A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs, The world uncertain comes and goes; The lover rooted stays.
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Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for Being.
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Music is the poor man's Parnassus.
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The imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.
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But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together To make up a year, And a sphere.
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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.
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The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do.
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I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore, With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
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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.
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I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion.
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In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
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The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to his opinion twenty years later.
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Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun.
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Deep in the man sits fast his fate To mould his fortunes, mean or great.
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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.
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When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will. His class is extinguished with him. In some other and quite different field the next man will appear.
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Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply, - ''Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.'
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The horseman serves the horse, The neatherd serves the neat, The merchant serves the purse, The eater serves his meat; 'T is the day of the chattel, Web to weave, and corn to grind; Things are in the saddle, And ride mankind.
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In the vaunted works of Art The master stroke is Nature's part.