Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

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

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.

Always do what you are afraid to do.

I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.

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.

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.

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

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

The earth laughs in flowers.

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

It is not the length of life, but the depth.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.

Life is a journey, not a destination.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

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

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

A great man is always willing to be little.

Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.

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

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

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

Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

Be not the slave of your own past - plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

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

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.

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

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn

Every artist was first an amateur.

You become what you think about all day long.

The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.

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

Envy is ignorance, Imitation is Suicide.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself.

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.

In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.

When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know.

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.

Nothing external to you has any power over you.

Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every 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, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.

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.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.

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.

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.

Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up

Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whisper of God.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes.

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

Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy.

All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.

You are constantly invited to be what you are.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.

Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue. . . .

Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

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.

Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

Life is a series of surprises and would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not.

We are always getting ready to live, but never living.

Love, and you shall be loved.

This is my wish for you: Comfort on difficult days, smiles when sadness intrudes, rainbows to follow the clouds, laughter to kiss your lips, sunsets to warm your heart, hugs when spirits sag, beauty for your eyes to see, friendships to brighten your being, faith so that you can believe, confidence for when you doubt, courage to know yourself, patience to accept the truth, Love to complete your life.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.

What is success? To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate the beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch Or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I must be myself. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men’s, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth it will bring us out safe at last.—But so may you give these friends pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify me and do the same thing. The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness abides.