Quotes by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on war
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"Man was born to be rich, or grow rich by use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature. Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on riches   

"I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on risk   

"We must set up a strong present tense against all rumors of wrath, past and to come."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on rumors   

"In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on safety
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"I cannot forgive a scholar his homeless despondency."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on scholars and scholarship   

"The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, unhonored, and unpaid task of observation. He is the world's eye."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on scholars and scholarship   

"What terrible questions we are learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, cities, and men were swallowed up, and all trace of them gone. We are coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men's minds all vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were framed upon."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on science   

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"Do what we can, summer will have its flies."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on science   

"The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it... Beware of me, it says, but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on sea
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"No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can't dishearten it."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on security   

"Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on security   

"Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-esteem   

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"It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-esteem   

"It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-esteem   

"Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-expression   

"The never-ending task of self improvement."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-improvement   

"Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods loved him because men hated him."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-improvement   

"A low self-love in the parent desires that his child should repeat his character and fortune."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on love   

"This gives force to the strong -- that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-reliance   

"The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-reliance   

"No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-reliance
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"Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-reliance   

"Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-respect   

"Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on sacrifice
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"Self-trust is the first secret to success."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-trust
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"Society is infested by persons who, seeing that the sentiments please, counterfeit the expression of them. These we call sentimentalists--talkers who mistake the description for the thing, saying for having."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on time   

"He is great who confers the most benefits."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on service   

"No man can help another without helping himself."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on service
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"Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of the gods."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on silence
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"Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on simplicity   

"It the proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on simplicity   

"That which we call sin in others, is experiment for us."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on sin   

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"Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on sincerity
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"Sincerity is the luxury allowed, like diadems and authority, only to the highest rank. Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on sincerity   

"Sincerity is the highest complement you can pay,"

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on sincerity   

"Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on skepticism   

"The sky is the daily bread of the eyes."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on sky   

"Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on slavery   

"Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on society