Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Morality

• The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hurt, Integrity, Evil

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

• There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not always call itself by that name.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Names, May, Morality

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.13, Harvard University Press

• The fatal trait of the times is the divorce between religion and morality.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Divorce, Religion, Morality

• There never was a strong character that was not made strong by discipline of the will; there never was a strong people that did not rank subordination and discipline among the signal virtues. Subjection to moods is the mark of a deteriorating morality. There is no baser servitude than that of the man whose caprices are his masters, and a nation composed of such men could not long preserve its liberties.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Character, Men

• Civilization depends on morality.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Civilization, Morality, Depends

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.13, Harvard University Press

• The evolution of a highly destined society must be moral; it must run in the grooves of the celestial wheels.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Society, Wheels

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.13, Harvard University Press

• The moral equalizes all; enriches, empowers all. It is the coin which buys all, and which all find in their pocket. Under the whipof the driver, the slave shall feel his equality with saints and heroes.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hero, Empowering, Pockets

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2005). “The Selected Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.250, University of Georgia Press

• Morality is the object of government.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Government, Morality, Objects

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.679, Harvard University Press

• Is it not manifest that our academic institutions should have a wider scope; that they should not be timid and keep the ruts of the last generation, but that wise men thinking for themselves and heartily seeking the good of mankind, and counting the cost of innovation, should dare to arouse the young to a just and heroic life; that the moral nature should be addressed in the school-room, and children should be treated as the high-born candidates of truth and virtue?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Wise, Children

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2005). “The Selected Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.51, University of Georgia Press

• It is true that genius takes its rise out of the mountains of rectitude; that all beauty and power which men covet are somehow born out of that Alpine district; that any extraordinary degree of beauty in man or woman involves a moral charm.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, Men, Rose

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.430

• As men get on in life, they acquire a love for sincerity, and somewhat less solicitude to be lulled or amused. In the progress ofthe character, there is an increasing faith in the moral sentiment, and a decreasing faith in propositions.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Men, Progress

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.436

• If the vast and the spiritual are omitted, so are the practical and the moral.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Spiritual, Morality, Practicals

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2741, Delphi Classics

• There is an intimate interdependence of intellect and morals.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Morality, Intimate, Intellect

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.400

• Character repudiates intellect, yet excites it; and character passes into thought, is published so, and then is ashamed before newflashes of moral worth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Morality, Ashamed

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.213

You May Also Like:

Henry David Thoreau

Walt Whitman

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Margaret Fuller

Emily Dickinson

Edgar Allan Poe

Herman Melville