Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Appearance

• It is only when mind and character slumber that the dress can be seen. If the intellect were always awake, and every noble sentiment, the man might go in huckaback or mats, and his dress would be admired and imitated.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Mind, Dresses

  "The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson".

• I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Names, Self Reliance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.262, Library of America

• This very certain that each man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of men, and we are always learning to read it. A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Learning, Eye, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.96, Harvard University Press

• Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Mean, Science

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.9, Library of America

• Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Spiritual, Nature, Swag

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2001). “Nature, Addresses and Lectures”, p.32, The Minerva Group, Inc.

• A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Philosophical, Men, Needs

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.96, Harvard University Press

• The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Cheer, Teaching

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.182

• Always scorn appearances and you always may.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  May, Appearance, Scorn

  Ralph Emerson (2014). “Ralph Waldo Emerson on Self-Reliance: Advice, Wit, and Wisdom from the Father of Transcendentalism”, p.14, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• The astonishment of life is the absence of any appearances of reconciliation between the theory and the practice of life.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Philosophy, Practice, Astonishment

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.95

• Outside among your fellows, among strangers, you must preserve appearances, a hundred things you cannot do; but inside, the terrible freedom.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Emotional, Feelings

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.46, Harvard University Press

• Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie-for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance-will instantly vitiate the effect.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wall, Honesty, Lying

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.111, Coyote Canyon Press

• By virtue of this science the poet is the Namer, or Language-maker, naming things sometimes after their appearance, sometimes after their essence, and giving to every one its own name and not another's, thereby rejoicing the intellect, which delights in detachment or boundary.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Essence, Names, Giving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.192, Penguin

• Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Games, Two Sides, Facts

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.690, Library of America

• Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Apology, Men, Wish

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “Essays: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.48, ReadHowYouWant.com

• People that seem so glorious are all show; underneath they are like everyone else.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Divorce, People, Arrogance

• Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of appearances. It is the outmost action of the inward life.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inward, Action, Appearance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.72, Graphic Arts Books

• Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in proverbs without contradiction.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Intuition, Suffering

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1302, Delphi Classics

• Power obeys reality, and not appearances; power is according to quality, and not quantity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Power, Reality, Quality

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.315, University of Georgia Press

• Let the realist not mind appearances. Let him delegate to others the costly courtesies and decorations of social life. The virtuesare economists, but some of the vices are also. Thus, next to humility, I have noticed that pride is a pretty good husband. A good pride is, as I reckon it, worth from five hundred to fifteen hundred a year.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Husband, Humility, Pride

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.61, Harvard University Press

• To educate the wise man, the State exists; and with the appearance of the wise man, the State expires. The appearance of charactermakes the state unnecessary. The wise man is the State.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Wisdom, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.386, Modern Library

• The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Stars, Mean, Mind

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.9, Library of America

• The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Stars, Flower

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Nature and the Method of Nature”, p.3, Library of Alexandria

• Every word which is used to express a moral or intellectual fact, if traced to its root, is found to be borrowed from some material appearance.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Roots, Intellectual, Facts

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.42, Harvard University Press

• The universe is the externisation of the soul. Wherever the life is, that bursts into appearance around it. Our science is sensual, and therefore superficial. The earth, and the heavenly bodies, physics, and chemistry, we sensually treat, as if they were self-existent; but these are the retinue of that Being we have.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Self, Soul

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.453, Library of America

• Men are like Geneva watches with crystal faces, which expose the whole movement.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Watches, Faces

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.409

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