Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Excuses

• If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Beauty, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Lee Grossman (2005). “A Year with Emerson: A Daybook”, p.75, David R. Godine Publisher

• Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, Eye, Sky

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.447, Penguin

• We must hold a man amenable to reason for the choice of his daily craft or profession. It is not an excuse any longer for his deeds that they are the custom of his trade. What business has he with an evil trade?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Business, Men, Evil

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.45, Penguin

• We are such lovers of self-reliance, that we excuse in a man many sins, if he will show us a complete satisfaction in his position, which asks no leave to be, of mine, or any man's good opinion.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Confidence, Men, Self

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1469, Delphi Classics

• The reverence for the deeds of our ancestors is a treacherous sentiment. Their merit was not to reverence the old, but to honor the present moment; and we falsely make them excuses of the very habit which they hated and defied.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hate, Honor, Deeds

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.527, Harvard University Press

• Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
  Then beauty is its own excuse for being:
  Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
  I never sought to ask, I never knew:
  But, in my simple ignorance suppose
  The selfsame power that brought me there brought you.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, Ignorance, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Rhodora”

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