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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American philosopher, essayist, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.

Emerson was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. Emerson believed in individualism, non-conformity, and the need for harmony between man and nature. To read Complete Works of Emerson

Selected Quotes of Emerson are:

We are always getting ready to live, but never living.
Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.
The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.
Divine persons are victory organised.
Money often costs too much.
Humility is the secret of the wise.
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
A nobler want of man is served by nature, namely, the love of Beauty.
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered.
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.
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Men suffer all their life long, under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time.
Every man I meet is in some way my superior; and in that I can learn of him.
Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they are executed.
Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.
Every thing in nature contains all the powers of nature. Every thing is made of one hidden stuff.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
It is easy to live for others; everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves.
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
Thus the so-called fortunate man is one who…relies on his instincts, and simply does not act where he should not, but waits his time, and without effort acts when the need is. If to this you add a fitness to the society around him, you have the elements of fortune.
The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.
Nature will not have us fret and fume. She does not like our benevolence or our learning much better than she likes our frauds and wars. When we come out of the caucus, or the bank, or the Abolition-convention, or the Temperance-meeting, or the Transcendental club, into the fields and woods, she says to us, `So hot? my little Sir.'