There is a time in every man's education when he arrives
at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation
is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse,
as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good,
no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his
toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sprinkle joy.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon,
or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbor, though he build
his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are always getting ready to live but never living.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our greatest glory consists not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Patience and fortitude conquer all things.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The world belongs to the energetic.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
These days come and go, but they say nothing,
and if we do not use the gifts they bring,
they carry them as silently away.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
A chief event of life is the day in which
we have encountered a mind that startled us.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal,
of the crusaders a crusader, of the merchants a merchant.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only way to have a friend is to be one
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
To fill the hour that is happiness
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every hero becomes a bore at last.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hitch your wagon to a star.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not been discovered
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are always two parties; the establishment and the movement.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines.
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Let us treat men and women well; treat them as if they were real.
Perhaps they are.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters
compared to what lies within us.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
To be great is to be misunderstood
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
We boil at different degrees.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon,
there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.
There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to
believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action
and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage
that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories,
but it takes brave men and women to win them.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is properly no history; only biography.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is then creative reading as well as creative writing
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Make yourself necessary to someone
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Art is a jealous mistress.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
All sensible people are selfish, and nature is tugging at
every contract to make the terms of it fair.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is what he thinks about all day long.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be careful what you set your heart upon, for you will surely have it.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest
you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured,
From evils which never arrived!
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The world is all gates, all opportunities,
strings of tension waiting to be struck.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself.
Go forward and make your dreams come true.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be Silly. Be honest. Be kind.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short,
but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit,
and our swelter of heat we say we have had our day
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
For everything you have missed, you have gained something else.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
In art the hand can never execute anything higher
than the heart can inspire.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
We aim above the mark to hit the mark.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
People only see what they are prepared to see.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Who you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place ...
to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
But in the mud and scum of things There always, always something sings
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Faith and love are apt to be spasmodic in the best minds.
Men live the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which
they never enter, and with their hands on the door-latch they die outside
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
To help the young soul, to add energy, inspire hope,
and blow the coals into a useful flame; to redeem defeat by
new thought and firm action this, though not easy, is the work of divine man.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
We judge of man's wisdom by his hope.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
When it's dark enough men see stars.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has
broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe,
or where it will end.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that
divine idea which each of us represents.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person,
"Always do what you are afraid to do."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only reward of virtue is virtue.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues, the better we like him.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged,
from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the
institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men are what their mothers made them.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the
kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the
spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that
someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could;
some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them
as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it
serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
We aim above the mark to hit the mark.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
People only see what they are prepared to see.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Who you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for
you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts;
which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things;
which is the mean of many extremes.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until
they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only gift is a portion of thyself.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life,
that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Courage consists of the power of self-recovery.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are the prisoners of ideas.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that
I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
To be great is to be misunderstood.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make
you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some of your hurt you have cured, And the sharpest
you still have survived, But what torments of grief
you endured From evil that never arrived.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is a little thing when he works by and for himself;
but when he gives voice to the rules of love and justice, he is godlike.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
This time like all times is a very good one if we but know what to do with it
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is for you.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
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