Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Dignity

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

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Motivational, Attitude, Character

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1976). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume XII: 1835-1862”, p.69, Harvard University Press

• Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, Grace, Bait

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.115, Courier Corporation

• Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Time, Wall, Sleep

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.206, Courier Corporation

• Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Levels, Welcome

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2602, Delphi Classics

• I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Work, Learning, Sacrifice

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.69, Penguin

• The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters, - a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man. Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Land, Ideas

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.175

• It is noticed, that the consideration of the great periods and spaces of astronomy induces a dignity of mind, and an indifferenceto death.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Space, Mind, Dignity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.399

• Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinction. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit. It is like ice, on which no beauty of form, no majesty of carriage, can plead any immunity; they must walk gingerly, according to the laws of ice, or down they must go, dignity and all.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Ice, Law

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.86, Harvard University Press

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