Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Idealism

• The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracle, in the perpetual openness of thehuman mind to new influx of light and power; he believes in inspiration, and in ecstacy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Spiritual, Believe, Inspiration

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.196, Library of America

• Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of country and religion,not as painfully accumulated, atom after atom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but as one vast picture, which God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of the soul.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Country, Past

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.60, Harvard University Press

• The idealism of Berkeley is only a crude statement of the idealism of Jesus, and that again is a crude statement of the fact thatall nature is the rapid efflux of goodness executing and organizing itself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Jesus, Facts, Christ

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.127, Courier Corporation

• Every materialist will be an idealist; but an idealist can never go backward to be a materialist.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Idealism, Idealist

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.89, Penguin

• In the actual world--the painful kingdom of time and place--dwell care, and canker, and fear. With thought, with the ideal, is immortal hilarity, the rose of joy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Rose, Joy, Hilarity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.328, Library of America

• It is curious that Christianity, which is idealism, is sturdily defended by the brokers, and steadily attacked by the idealists.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Christian, Curious, Idealism

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.263, Courier Corporation

• As thinkers, mankind has ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness; the first class beginning to think from the data of the senses, the second class perceive that the senses are not final and say, The senses give us representations of things, but what are the things themselves, they cannot tell. The materialist insists on facts, on history, on the force of circumstances and the animal wants of man; the idealists on the power of Thought and Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on individual culture.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspiration, Men, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.4265, Delphi Classics

• General ideas are essences. They are our gods: they round and ennoble the most partial and sordid way of living.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Essence, Ideas, Way

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.267

• Underneath the inharmonious and trivial particulars, is a musical perfection, the Ideal journeying always with us, the heaven without rent or seam.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Journey, Perfection, Heaven

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.484, Library of America

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