Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is not every man sometimes a radical in politics? Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick, or aged. In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused; when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Europe extends to the Alleghenies; America lies beyond.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

O friend, never strike sail to a fear! Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The key to every man is his thought. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Words so vascular and alive they would bleed if you cut them, words that walked and ran.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oh yes, funky shit is good.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, arrives the snow.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world belongs to the energetic.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

For nonconformity, the world whips you with its displeasure.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some men's words I remember so well that I must often use them to express my thought. Yes, because I perceive that we have heard the same truth, but they have heard it better.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A great man is always willing to be little.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

We grant no dukedoms to the few, We hold like rights and shall;--Equal on Sunday in the pew, On Monday in the mall. For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail? The noble craftsman we promote, Disown the knave and fool Each honest man shall have his vote, Each child shall have his school. A union then of honest men, Or union nevermore again.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I awoke this morning with a devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. Shall I not call God the Beautiful, who daily showeth himself to me in his gifts?

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The April winds are magical, And thrill our tuneful frames; The garden-walks are passional To bachelors and dames.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

For thou, O Spring! canst renovate All that high God did first create. Be still his arm and architect, Rebuild the ruin, mend defect; Chemist to vamp old worlds with new, Coat sea and sky with heavenlier blue.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Respect the child. Wait and see the new product of Nature. Nature loves analogies, but not repetitions. Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dear Ellen, many a golden year May ripe, then dim, thy beauty's bloom But never shall the hour appear In sunny joy, in sorrow's gloom, When aught shall hinder me from telling My ardent love, all loves excelling.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everything good is on the highway.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Colleges . . . have their indispensable office,--to teach elements. But they can highly serve us when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The great object of Education should be commensurate with the object of life. It should be a moral one; to teach self-trust: to inspire the youthful man with an interest in himself; with a curiosity touching his own nature; to acquaint him with the resources of his mind, and to teach him that there is all his strength, and to inflame him with a piety towards the Grand Mind in which he lives. Thus would education conspire with the Divine Providence.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gambol and song and jubilee are done, Life's motley pilgrimage must be begun;--Another scene is crowding on the last,--Perhaps a darkened picture of the past; And we, who leave Youth's fairy vales behind, Where Joy hath hailed us on the summer wind, Would fain, with fond delay, prolong the hour, Which sternly strikes at Friendship's golden power.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A little integrity is better than any career.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

After thirty a man wakes up sad every morning excepting perhaps five or six until the day of his death.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spring still makes spring in the mind, When sixty years are told; Love wakes anew this throbbing heart, And we are never old.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire from sight and afterwards return again.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Children are all foreigners.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man’s years should not be counted until he has nothing else to count.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Few envy the consideration enjoyed by the oldest inhabitant.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self-trust is the first secret of success.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Traveling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happy is the house that shelters a friend!

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friends are self-elected. Reverence is a great part of it.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

It sometimes occurs that memory has a personality of its own and volunteers or refuses its information at its will, not at mine.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Success treads on every right step.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson