Ralph Waldo Emerson's Quotes

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force - that thoughts rule the world.

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

We must be our own before we can be another's.

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.

The first wealth is health.

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.

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

To be great is to be misunderstood.

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

The years teach much which the days never know.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

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

The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.

The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.

Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.

Every experiment, by multitudes or by individuals, that has a sensual and selfish aim, will fail.

Every wall is a door.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

A man in debt is so far a slave.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

The reward of a thing well done is having done it.

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

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.

Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

Beauty without expression is boring.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

What you are comes to you.

Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.

Cause and effect are two sides of one fact.

There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

Money often costs too much.

A good indignation brings out all one's powers.

Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.

There are other measures of self-respect for a man, than the number of clean shirts he puts on every day.

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.

Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

Pictures must not be too picturesque.

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

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.