Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Duty

• What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think. This rule,equally arduous in actual and 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.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Learning, Greatness, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2017). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.144, Broadview Press

• The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Peace, Real, War

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics, Vol. V (in 51 Volumes)”, p.296, Cosimo, Inc.

• Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Motivational, Fear, Past

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.181, Harvard University Press

• Society is infected with rude, cynical, restless, and frivolous persons who prey upon the rest, and whom no public opinion concentrated into good manners, forms accepted by the sense of all, can reach; the contradictors and railers at public and private tables, who are like terriers, who conceive it the duty of a dog of honor to growl at any passer-by, and do the honors of the house by barking him out of sight.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dog, Sight, Cynical

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.407

• You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Solitude, Self Reliance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.12, Penguin

• We do what we must, and call it by the best names.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Motivational, Past, Names

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.413

• Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Growing Up, Believe, Book

  The American Scholar sec. 2 (1837)

• Preaching is the expression of moral sentiments applied to the duties of life.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Expression, Moral

• The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennui s, vanish, all duties even.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Winter, Night, Tragedy

• If we must accept fate we are not less compelled to affirm liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the power of character.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Fate, Destiny

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.254, Penguin

• Go face the fire at sea, or the cholera in your friend's house, or the burglar in your own, or what danger lies in the way of duty, knowing you are guarded by the cherubim of Destiny. If you believe in Fate to your harm, believe it, at least, for your good.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Lying, Believe

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.954, Library of America

• A man cannot utter two or three sentences without disclosing to intelligent ears precisely where he stands in life and thought, whether in the kingdom of the senses and the understanding, or in that of ideas and imagination, or in the realm of intuitions and duty.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Intelligent, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.434

• Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wisdom, May, Soil

• It is the duty of men to judge men only by their actions. Our faculties furnish us with no means of arriving at the motive, the character, the secret self. We call the tree good from its fruits, and the man, from his works.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Mean, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2006). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems”, p.58, Bantam Classics

• When duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Military, Youth, Lows

  "Voluntaries" no. 3 (1867)

• So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' The youth whispers, 'I can.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Dust, Youth

  'Voluntaries' no. 3 (1867)

• Thus is man made equal to every event. He can face danger for the right. A poor, tender, painful body, he can run into flame or bullets or pestilence, with duty for his guide.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Men, Flames

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2353, Delphi Classics

• A song is no song unless the circumstance is free and fine. If a singer sing from a sense of duty or from seeing no way to escape,I had rather have none. Those only can sleep who do not care to sleep; and those only write or speak best who do not too much respect the writing or the speaking.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Song, Sleep, Writing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.92, Harvard University Press

• Read proudly--put the duty of being read invariably on the author. If he is not read, whose fault is it? I am quite ready to be charmed, but I shall not make-believe I am charmed.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Believe, Reading, Faults

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1979). “The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”

• Use makes a better soldier than the most urgent considerations of duty,--familiarity with danger enabling him to estimate the danger. He sees how much is the risk, and is not afflicted with imagination; knows practically Marshal Saxe's rule, that every soldier killed costs the enemy his weight in lead.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  War, Imagination, Soldier

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.132, Harvard University Press

• The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Home, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.131, Penguin

• Insist on your life, never imitate... do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Too Much, Dare, Duty

• Ethics and religion differ herein; that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man; the other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God; Ethics does not.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Personality, Religion

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.24, Courier Corporation

• The genius of reading and of gardening are antagonistic, like resinous and vitreous electricity. One is concentrative in sparks and shocks: the other is diffuse strength; so that each disqualifies its workman for the other's duties.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Reading, Gardening, Genius

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.636, Modern Library

• Meek young men grow up in colleges and believe it is their duty to accept the views which books have given, and grow up slaves.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Growing Up, Book

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Waldo Emerson, Waldo Emerson Forbes (1910). “Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1820-1872 [1876] Ed”

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