Quotes by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

"A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on character   

"Give no bounties: make equal laws: secure life and prosperity and you need not give alms."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on charity   

"Do not tell me of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on charity   

"So of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is spent, the more it remains."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on cheerfulness   

"Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on sympathy   

"Every man has his own vocation, talent is the call."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on talent   

"It is a happy talent to know how to play."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on talent   

"Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on talent   

"Talent for talent's sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on talent
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"Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on talent
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"What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on talkativeness
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"A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the notion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary but every thing hath affinities infinite."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on taste   

"Every advantage has its tax."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on taxes and taxation   

"The man who can make hard things easy is the educator."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on teacher
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"Knowledge exists to be imparted."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on teacher   

"Men lose their tempers in defending their taste."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on temper   

"We gain the strength of the temptation we resist."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on temptation   

"What your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul's emphasis is always right."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"If a man sits down to think, he is immediately asked if has a headache."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"Life consists in what a person is thinking of all day."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"Some thoughts always find us young, and keep us so. Such a thought is the love of the universal and eternal beauty."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"The revelation of Thought takes men out of servitude into freedom."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"The soul of God is poured into the world through the thoughts of men."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking
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"There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into power."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"Thought makes every thing fit for use."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"To think is to act."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"A sect or party is an incognito devised to save man from the vexation of thinking."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"A man's what he thinks about all day long"

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"We are ashamed of our thoughts and often see them brought forth by others."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking
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"What is the hardest thing in the world? To think."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on thoughts and thinking   

"One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on time
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"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on time   

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"These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on time   

"The surest poison is time."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on time   

"So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person's genius is confined to a very few hours."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on time
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"The greatest meliorator of the world is selfish, huckstering Trade."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on trade   

"We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on trade   

"I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable -- any real insight or broad human sentiment."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on translation