Quotes by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

"'Tis very certain that each man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of men, and we are always learning to read it. A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on appearance   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on applause   

"The wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on army and navy   

"The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on army and navy   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on light
3 fans of this quote   

"There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on criticism   

"People do not deserve to have good writings; they are so pleased with the bad."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on literature   

"Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on loneliness
4 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"All mankind loves a lover."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on love
6 fans of this quote   

"The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on love
7 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on love
24 fans of this quote   

"He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on love
11 fans of this quote   

"There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on luck
3 fans of this quote   

"Shallow people believe in luck and in circumstances; Strong people believe in cause and effect."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on luck
9 fans of this quote   

"By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on machinery   

"Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on manners
3 fans of this quote   

"Manners are the happy way of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love --now repeated and hardened into usage. They form at last a rich varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, and its details adorned. If they are superficial, so are the dewdrops which give such depth to the morning meadows."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on manners   

"Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on manners   

"The basis of good manners is self-reliance."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on manners   

"There are men whose manners have the same essential splendor as the simple and awful sculpture on the friezes of the Parthenon, and the remains of the earliest Greek art."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on manners   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"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?"

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on marriage   

"The betrothed and accepted lover has lost the wildest charms of his maiden by her acceptance. She was heaven while he pursued her, but she cannot be heaven if she stoops to one such as he!"

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on marriage
3 fans of this quote   

"The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on art   

"The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on art   

"The masses have no habit of self reliance or original action."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on masses   

"Leave this hypocritical prating about the masses. Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on masses
4 fans of this quote   

"Men are what their mothers made them."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on men
6 fans of this quote   

"Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on men   

"Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on women   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"My chief want in life is someone who shall make me do what I can."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on mentors   

"We boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if we have broken any idols, it is through a transfer of idolatry."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on mentors   

"He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on mind
7 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"We cannot see things that stare us in the face until the hour comes that the mind is ripened."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on mind   

"Shall we judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on minorities   

"All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on minorities   

"The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on mobs   

"The world is his who has money to go over it."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on money   

"Money often costs too much."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on money   

"Money is the representative of a certain quantity of corn or other commodity. It is so much warmth, so much bread."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on money   

"It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have it, it requires ten times as much skill to keep it."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on money