Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Culture

• These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Reality, Self, Names

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.42, 谷月社

• Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season, that he is born into the state of war, and that the commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self- collected, and neither defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his behaviour.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Weed, War, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.74, 谷月社

• Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind; and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Keys, Justice

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.16, Graphic Arts Books

• No performance is worth loss of geniality. 'Tis a cruel price we pay for certain fancy goods called fine arts and philosophy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Kindness, Philosophy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.366

• We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Justice, Diversity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.545, Рипол Классик

• A cheerful intelligent face is the end of culture, and success enough. For it indicates the purpose of Nature and wisdom attained.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Happiness, Success, Wisdom

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.656, Modern Library

• Culture is one thing and varnish is another.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Other Cultures, Culture, One Thing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.324, Courier Corporation

• Culture opens the sense of beauty.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, Culture

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1875). “Culture, Behavior, Beauty”, p.37

• It the proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Simplicity, Culture, Matter

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1875). “Culture, Behavior, Beauty”, p.95

• Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Justice, Diversity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert J. Von Frank (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Poetry”, p.8, Harvard University Press

• God said, I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more; Up to my ear this morning brings The outrage of the poor.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Morning, Kings, Tired

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert J. Von Frank (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Poetry”, p.171, Harvard University Press

• What is a man born for but to be a reformer, a remaker of what has been made, a denouncer of lies, a restorer of truth and good?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Lying, Men, Justice

• Who makes and keeps the Jew or the Negro base, who but you, who exclude them from the rights which others enjoy?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Rights, Justice, Diversity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Lee Grossman (2005). “A Year with Emerson: A Daybook”, p.61, David R. Godine Publisher

• It is the property of the religious spirit to be the most refining of all influences. No external advantages, no culture of the tastes, no habit of command, no association with the elegant, or even depth of affection, can bestow that delicacy and that grandeur of bearing which belong only to the mind accustomed to celestial conversation,--all else is but gilt and cosmetics, beside this, as expressed in every look and gesture.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Mind, Religion

• He only is a well-made man who has a good determination. And the end of culture is not to destroy this, God forbid! but to train away all impediment and mixture and leave nothing but pure power.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Determination, Power, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.71, Harvard University Press

• Let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Sea, America

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.112, Harvard University Press

• The land is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our culture. The continent we inhabit is to be physic andfood for our mind, as well as our body. The land, with its tranquilizing, sanative influences, is to repair the errors of a scholastic and traditional education, and bring us to just relations with men and things.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Land, Errors

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.214, Library of America

• The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear, alike in the poverty of the obscurest farm, and in the miscellany of metropolitan life, and that these few are alone to be regarded,--the escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are; and love what is simple and beautiful; independence and cheerful relation, these are the essentials,--these, and the wish to serve,--to add somewhat to the well-being of men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Happiness, Beautiful

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.427

• The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be organized. Man's culture can spare nothing, wants all material. He is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Evil, Enemy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.88, Harvard University Press

• England produces under favorable conditions of ease and culture the finest women in the world. And, as the men are affectionate and true-hearted, the women inspire and refine them.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Women, Inspire, Culture

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2153, Delphi Classics

• Culture is the suggestion, from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities through which he can modulate the violence of any master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor him against himself. Culture redresses this imbalance, puts him among equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Solitude, Suggestions

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.388

• The highest end of government is the culture of men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Culture, Ends

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Portable Emerson”, p.188, Penguin

• The land is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our culture...food for our mind, as well as our body.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Land, Mind, Culture

• The saint and poet seek privacy to ends the most public and universal: and it is the secret of culture, to interest the man more in his public, than in his private quality.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Solitude, Secret

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.398

• Society cannot do without cultivated men. As soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher wants become imperative.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Society, Culture

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.15, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

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