Ralph Waldo Emerson

Table of contents

1 2 Sourced 3 Attributed 4 External Links:

((May 25, 1803 - April 27, 1882))

Sourced

• 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.
  • Journals (1824) (see also: Patriotism

• Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.
  • Journals (1836)

• The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
  • Journals (1839)

• Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
  • Art (1841) (see also: Common Sense)

• 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.
  • Address on The Method of Nature (1841) (see also: Love)

• I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,— that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,— and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment.
  • Essay, First Series, Self-Reliance (1841)

• A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
  • Essay, First Series, Self-Reliance (1841)

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide.

• • Essay, First Series, Self-Reliance (1841)

• A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
  • Essay, First Series, Self-Reliance (1841)

• Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
  • Essay, First Series, Self-Reliance (1841)

• Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.
  • Essays, First Series: Prudence (1841)

• Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.
  • Journals (May 1849) This is a remark Emerson wrote referring to the unreliability of second hand testimony and worse upon the subject of immortality. It is often taken out of proper context, and has even begun appearing on the internet as "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know" or sometimes just "I hate quotations." (More quotations on: Quotations)

• I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "LEAVES OF GRASS." I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our western wits fat and mean.
  
  I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire.
  
  I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging…
  • Emerson's Letter to Walt Whitman thanking him for a copy of Leaves of Grass (July 21, 1855)

• The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
  • The Conduct of Life: Fate (1860)

• Hitch your wagon to a star.
• "American Civilization", The Atlantic Monthly (1862)

• As soon as there is life there is danger.
  • Society and Solitude (1870)

• 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.
  • ''Society and Solitude: Works and Days (1870)

• Every artist was first an amateur.
  • Letters and Social Aims: Progress of Culture (1876) (see also: Art)

• In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.
  • Letters and Social Aims: Quotation and Originality (1876) (see also: Books)

• Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.
  • Letters and Social Aims: The Comic (1876)

• By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.
  • Letters and Social Aims (1876)

• Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.
  • Letters and Social Aims (1876) :Quotation and Originality (see also: Quotations)

• Quotation confesses inferiority.
  • Letters and Social Aims (1876)

• The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.
  • Natural History of Intellect (1893)

Attributed

• "A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer."

• "All the great speakers were bad speakers at first."

• "Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds"

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

• "Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think."

• "Children are all foreigners."

• "Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live."

• "Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment."

• "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

• "Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."

• "Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good."

• "Every hero becomes a bore at last." (see also Boredom)

• "Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good."

• "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense."

• Give all to love; obey thy heart.

• I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

• I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the Stern Fact, the Sad Self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.

• If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.

• If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor.

• In different hours a man represents each of several ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin—seven or eight ancestors, at least; and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music that life is.

• Insist on yourself; never imitate... Every great man is unique.

• Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.

• Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.

• Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

• "Nothing can be preserved that is not good."
  • Source: In Praise of Books

• Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

• Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

• Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

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

• Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. (see also: Luck)

• 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.

• Speak what you think today in words as hard as cannon-balls and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.

• The ancestor of every action is a thought.

• The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. (see also: Civilization)

• The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons. (see also: Honor)

• The only gift is a portion of thyself.

• The only reward of virtue is virtue.

• The only way to have a friend is to be one.

• The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it. (see also: Friendship)

• The world belongs to the energetic.

• There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.

• There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and squirrel.

• Tis the good reader that makes the good book.

• Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. (see also: Truth & Lies)

• We do what we must, and call it by the best names.

• What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

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

• When you strike at a king, you must kill him.

• Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.

• Wit makes its own welcome and levels all distinctions. (see also: Humor)

• Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance. (see also: Chance)

External Links:

• Self Reliance at Wikisource

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• "It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'Always do what you are afraid to do.'"
  • • Albanian - ishte një këshillë shumë e mirë ajo që dëgjova një herë t'i jepej një të riu: 'bëj gjithnjë atë që ke frikë të bësh'
    • Aragones - yera un sobrebuén consello ro que ascuité una begata dar a una presona choben, 'fe perén lo que tiens medrana de fer'
    • Asturian - foi un gran conseyu qu'una vuelta sentí que daben a un xoven: 'fai siempre lo que más t'allercia'
    • Basque - berealdikoa zen behinola gazte bati ematen ziotela entzun nuen aholkua: 'egizu beti egiteko beldur zarena'
    • Bitruscan - mubuin cunsiriu ca ni ascurta turi at uni iuin birsun: 'aci ua tutabit ca ti abi bubia ta aci'
    • Bolognese - l êra pròpri un gran bån cunsélli, quall ch’ai ò sintó ch’i dèven a un ragazèl: 'fà sänper quall ch’t è pòra ed fèr'
    • Bresciano - l'era prope en bù consej chel che 'na olta go sintit da a en zuenot: fa semper chel che ta ghet pora de fa
    • Breton - un ali dispar eo an hini am boa klevet lavaret ur wech d'unan yaouank; 'gra dalc'hmat ar pezh a ra aon dit'
    • Calabrese - era veramenti 'nu bbuonu consigliu,'cchiru ca 'na vota àggiu sintutu dà a 'nu giuvani:'fà sempi 'cchiru ca hai paura di fà'
    • Catalan - era un bon consell el que vaig escoltar una vegada que donaven a un jove: fes sempre allò que tens por de fer
    • Croatian - bija†e to odlican savjet mladoj osobi, koji sam jednom cuo, 'uvijek ucini ono †to se boji† uciniti'
    • Dutch - het was een uitstekende raad die ik ooit aan een jongeling hoorde geven: doe altijd datgene waarvoor je bang bent het te doen
    • Ekspreso - Lo esed uni ekselenti konsilio lo ke mio askolted uni vise doned a uni person juvenil: 'fasen semperi lo ke vo haben timor de faser'
    • Esperanto - estis bonega konsilo kiun mi iam auxdis donita al junulo, 'cxiam faru tion kion vi timas'
    • Estonian - kuulsin kord noorele inimesele antavat väärt nõuannet: 'tee alati seda, mida sa kardad teha'
    • Finnish - kuulin kerran nuorelle annetun neuvon, joka oli erittäin hyvä: 'tee aina se mitä pelkäät tehdä'
    • Flemish - het was een heel goede raad die ik ooit heb horen geven aan een jongere: 'doe altijd waar je bang voor bent'
    • French - c’était un excellent conseil, celui qu'un jour j’ai entendu donner à un jeune homme : 'fais toujours ce que tu as peur de faire'
    • Furlan - di bot al jere un bon consei, chel che 'o vevi sentût dâ a un zovin: 'fâs simpri chel che tu as pore di fâ '
    • Galician - foi un grande consello que unha vez sentín que lle daban a un mozo: 'fai aquilo que máis medo che dá'
    • German - es handelte sich wirklich um einen guten Rat, den man einem jungen Mann einst gab: 'tue immer das, was dir Angst macht'
    • Griko Salentino - ìson azz'alìssio na ccunsìjo poddhì ccalò cino pu ìcusa mia fforà ca dòcane i nna ppaddhicàri: 'came panta cino pu faùse na cai'
    • Hungarian - valóban jótanács volt az, amit egyszer a jelenlétemben egy fiatalembernek adtak: 'Tedd mindig azt, amit félsz megtenni'
    • Interlingua - il era un excellente consilio illo que io ascoltava un vice dar a un persona juvene: 'face sempre illo que tu ha pavor de facer'
    • Italian - era davvero un ottimo consiglio, quello che ho sentito una volta dare a un giovane: 'fai sempre quello che hai paura di fare'
    • Judeo Spanish - Un ekselente konsejo era el ke sinti una ves dar a una persona manseva: 'aze siempre lo kee espantas de azer'
    • Latin - optimum consilium fuit omnino quod olim audivi iuveni cuidam dari: age semper quod timeas ne agas
    • Leonese - yera un bon conseyu el qu'una vuelta sintí que-y dieran a un mozu: 'Fai siempres lu que ties llercia de facere'
    • Limburgian - 't wos geene slaechte roëd wao ich ojt on ne joenge gas héb heire gaeve: 'doet alteid dat waoste nie doors'
    • Lombardo - l'era debon on grand consili quell che hoo sentuu ona vòlta dagh a on giovin: 'fa semper quell che te gh'heet pagura de fà'
    • Mudnés - l'èra pròpria un grân cunsèlli quall ch'ai hò sintû dêr 'na vôlta a un zuvnôt: fà sèimper quall ch'ent t'atèint mênga a fèr
    • Papiamentu - tabata un ekselente konseho ku mi a skucha duna un bes na un persona hoben, 'hasi semper loke bo tin miedu di hasi'
    • Parmigiano - l'é un avis bon bombén col che 'na volta j'ho sentí där a un giovnot; fa semper col che t'é paura 'd fär
    • Piemontese - a l'era franch un bon consèj, col ch'i l'hai sentù na vira dé à un giovo: fà sèmper lòn ch'it l'has pau ëd fé
    • Polish - to naprawde doskonala rada, jaka uslyszalem, gdy dawano ja pewnemu mlodemu czlowiekowi: 'rób zawsze to, czego boisz sie robic'
    • Portuguese - era un excelente conselho o que ouvi uma vez darem a um jovem: 'faz sempre o que tiveres medo de fazer'
    • Romagnolo - l'era da bon un fàtt cunséil qvel ca'i'o sndì na volta dé ma un zovni: 'fé qvel ca t'à pavura ad fé'
    • Roman - era davero un gran consijo quello che ´na vorta ho sentito da´ a un rigazzo: fa´ sempre quello che ciai paura de fa´
    • Spanish - era un excelente consejo el que escuché una vez dar a una persona joven, 'haz siempre lo que tienes miedo de hacer'
    • Swedish - det var ett verkligt gott råd som jag en gång hörde någon ge en ung människa: gör alltid det du är rädd för att göra

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See: list of people by name