Ralph Waldo Emerson's Quotes

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pictures must not be too picturesque.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every artist was first an amateur.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

We must be our own before we can be another's.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beauty without expression is boring.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hitch your wagon to a star.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Always do what you are afraid to do.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The years teach much which the days never know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

All mankind love a lover.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

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

A great man is always willing to be little.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

To be great is to be misunderstood.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

Ralph Waldo Emerson