Quotes by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

"The triumphs of peace have been in some proximity to war. Whilst the hand was still familiar with the sword-hilt, whilst the habits of the camp were still visible in the port and complexion of the gentleman, his intellectual power culminated; the compression and tension of these stern conditions is a training for the finest and softest arts, and can rarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn from occupations as hardy as war."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on war   

"Our strength grows out of our weakness."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on weakness
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"The first wealth is health."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wealth
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"Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wealth
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"Wealth is in applications of mind to nature; and the art of getting rich consists not in industry, much less in saving, but in a better order, in timeliness, in being at the right spot."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wealth   

"The education of the will is the object of our existence."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on power   

"Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wisdom   

"Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wisdom   

"Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wisdom   

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"Life is a festival only to the wise."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wisdom   

"There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wisdom   

"There is no beautifier of complexion or form of behavior like the wish to scatter joy, and not pain, around us."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wish and wishing   

"Beware what you set your heart upon. For it shall surely be yours."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wish and wishing
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"Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wit   

"A man's wife has more power over him than the state has."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wives   

"Slavery it is that makes slavery; freedom, freedom. The slavery of women happened when the men were slaves of kings."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on women
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"Men love to wonder and that is the seed of our science."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on wonder   

"It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence, whether a man be behind it or no."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on words   

"Words are alive; cut them and they bleed."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on words
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"See only that thou work and thou canst not escape the reward."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on work   

"We must hold a man amenable to reason for the choice of his daily craft or profession. It is not an excuse any longer for his deeds that they are the custom of his trade. What business has he with an evil trade?"

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on work   

"Work and thou canst escape the reward; whether the work be fine or course, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on work   

"Work is victory."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on work   

"The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon. His conversation clings to the weather and the news, yet he allows himself to be surprised into thought, and the unlocking of his learning and philosophy."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on world   

"Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on worry
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"There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every man's title to fame."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on writers and writing   

"The thirst for adventure is the vent which Destiny offers; a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new country, speak to the imagination and offer swing and play to the confined powers."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on adventure   

"There never was a child so lovely, but his mother was glad to get him asleep."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on children   

"The child with his sweet pranks, the fool of his senses, commanded by every sight and sound, without any power to compare and rank his sensations, abandoned to a whistle or a painted chip, to a lead dragoon, or a gingerbread dog, individualizing everything, generalizing nothing, delighted with every new thing, lies down at night overpowered by the fatigue, which this day of continual pretty madness has incurred. But Nature has answered her purpose with the curly, dimpled lunatic. She has tasked every faculty, and has secured the symmetrical growth of the bodily frame, by all these attitudes and exertions --an end of the first importance, which could not be trusted to any care less perfect than her own."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on children   

"Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on choice
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"We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on choice   

"Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on life   

"Cities give us collision. 'Tis said, London and New York take the nonsense out of a man."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on life   

"The city is recruited from the country."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on life   

"As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits, which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on civilization   

"Sunday is the core of our civilization, dedicated to thought and reverence."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on civilization   

"Civilization depends on morality."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on civilization   

"One of the benefits of a college education is to show the boy its little avail."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on colleges and universities   

"Universities are of course hostile to geniuses, which, seeing and using ways of their own, discredit the routine: as churches and monasteries persecute youthful saints."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on colleges and universities   

"The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professors of books; and I think no chair is so much needed."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on colleges and universities