Ralph Waldo Emerson
~ 1803 - 1882
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He is known for his philosophical essays, particularly "Nature" and "Self-Reliance," which emphasize individualism, self-reliance, and the importance of nature as a spiritual force.
If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.
The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.
Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.
Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.
Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.
Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.
Speak the truth, and all things alive or brute are vouchers, and the very roots of the grass underground there, do seem to stir and move to bear you witness.
Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he.
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
The vegetable life does not content itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single seed, but it fills the air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, that, if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves, that hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity; that, at least one may replace the parent.
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. We can only see what we are.
Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.
Your actions speak so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
Habits and customs are a convenience devised for the support of timid natures who dare not allow their souls free play.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.
Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief in denying them.
We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.
Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
True humility is intelligent self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves. It makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short of what we can be. Ralph W.
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.
He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.
Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind. Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.
It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'always do what you are afraid to do.'
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Learn from it... tomorrow is a new day.
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
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. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.
People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.
What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.
We must be our own before we can be another’s.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.