Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Habits

• Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Thankful

• Cultivate the habit of being grateful... and ...give thanks continuously.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Gratitude, Grateful, Giving

• The exceptional life depends not on working harder, but on different, even opposite, actions from habit and the crowd.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Opposites, Different, Crowds

• We sometimes observe that spoiled children contract a habit of annoying quite wantonly those who have charge of them, and seem tomeasure their own sense of well-being, not by what they do, but by the degree of reaction they can cause. It is vain to get rid of them by not minding them: if purring and humming is not noticed, they squeal and screech; then if you chide and console them, they find the experiment succeeds, and they begin again. The child will sit in your arms contented if you do nothing. If you take a book and read, he commences hostile operations.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Book, Arms

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2955, Delphi Classics

• Any relation to the land, the habit of tilling it, or mining it, or even hunting on it, generates the feeling of patriotism. He who keeps shop on it, or he who merely uses it as a support to his desk and ledger, or to his manufactory, values it less.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hunting, Land, Shopping

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.216, Library of America

• The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda-these are in the system, and our habits are like theirs.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Snakes, Rude, Atheism

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.78, Penguin

• The masses have no habit of self-reliance or original action.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Self, Action, Habit

• There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we must obey.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Law, Habit, Seeking

• Self Esteem::"It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. I knew a man of simple habits and earnest character who never put out his hands nor opened his lips to court the public, and having survived several rotten reputations of younger men, honor came at last and sat down with him upon his private bench from which he had never stirred."

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Self Esteem, Character, Simple

• For all our penny-wisdom, for all our soul-destroying slavery to habit, it is not to be doubted that all men have sublime thoughts; that all men value the few real hours of life; they love to be heard; they love to be caught up into the vision of principles. We mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had, in the dreary years of routine and of sin, with souls that made our souls wiser; that spoke what we thought; that told us what we knew; that gave us leave to be what we only were.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Memories, Real, Character

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.89, Library of America

• The poet's habit of living should be set on a key so low that the common influences should delight him.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Keys, Delight, Common

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.215, Harvard University Press

• 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

• 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

• The great make its feel, first of all, the indifference of circumstances. They call into activity the higher perceptions, and subdue the low habits of comfort and luxury; but the higher perceptions find their objects everywhere; only the low habits need palaces and banquets.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Greatness, Luxury, Perception

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1912). “Society and solitude”

• My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we go on from explanation to explanation, until all is said that words can, and we leave matters just as they were at first, because of that vicious assumption.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Understanding, Goes On, Matter

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays: First and Second Series”, p.399, Library of America

• Let us learn to live coarsely, dress plainly, and lie hard. The least habit of dominion over the palate has certain good effects not easily estimated.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Lying, Simplicity, Dresses

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1860). “The Conduct of Life”, p.135

• Keep the town for occasions, but the habits should be formed in retirement.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Retirement, Solitude, Towns

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.1028, Library of America

• Again, the great number of cultivated men keep each other up to a high standard. The habit of meeting well-read and knowing men teaches the art of omission and selection.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Men, Numbers

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.283, Graphic Arts Books

• The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation: and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine; property and its cares, friends and a social habit, or politics, or music, or feasting. Everything is good which takes away one plaything and delusion more, and drives us home to add one stroke of faithful work.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Work, Home, Differences

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.353

• Go cherish your soul; express companions; set your habits to a life of solitude; then will the faculties rise fair and full within.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Soul, Solitude, Cherish

• The instincts of the ant are very unimportant, considered as the ants; but the moment a ray of relation is seen to be a monitor, a little body with a mighty heart, then all its habits, even that said to be recently observed, that it never sleeps, become sublime.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Heart, Sleep, Sublime

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2006). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems”, p.29, Bantam Classics

• Man is the broken giant, and in all his weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation with nature.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Men, Broken

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.113, Penguin

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