Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Prayer

• The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Funny, Friendship, Prayer

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Culture, Behavior, Beauty: Books, Art Eloquence. Power, Wealth, Illusions”

• Coffee is good for talent, but genius wants prayer.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Coffee, Genius

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1969). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VII: 1838-1842”, p.451, Harvard University Press

• Is not prayer a study of truth, a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Spiritual, Prayer, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.70, Harvard University Press

• No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Spiritual, Prayer, Learning

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred R. Ferguson (1965). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume V: 1835-1838”, p.182, Harvard University Press

• The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Weed, Nature, Prayer

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.276, Library of America

• As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Men, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.276, Library of America

• Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory. Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Gratitude, Prayer, Memories

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1191, Delphi Classics

• Prayer that craves a particular commodity—anything less than all good, is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Mean, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.81, Cosimo, Inc.

• Prayer that craves a particular commodity, anything less than all good, is vicious.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Commodity, Vicious

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1808). “Select Essays and Poems”, p.53

• In the moment when you make the least petition to God, though it be but a silent wish that he may approve you, or add one moment to your life,--do you not, in the very act, necessarily exclude all other beings from your thought? In that act, the soul stands alone with God, and Jesus is no more present to your mind than your brother or your child.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Jesus, Brother

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2905, Delphi Classics

• Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poeticyouth dreams, and prays, and paints today, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dream, Prayer, War

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.560, Library of America

• Prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Mean, Ends

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1808). “Select Essays and Poems”, p.53

• Mankind have such a deep stake in inward illumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in defence of his life of thought and prayer.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Illumination, Inward

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.749, Library of America

• The religion of England is part of good-breeding. When you see on the continent the well-dressed Englishman come into his ambassador's chapel and put his face for silent prayer into his smooth-brushed hat, you cannot help feeling how much national pride prays with him, and the religion of a gentleman.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Pride, Feelings

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.359, Penguin

• Is not prayer also a study of truth,--a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily, without learningsomething. But when a faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object from personal relations, and see it in the light of thought, shall, at the same time, kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into creation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Knowledge, Science

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.70, Harvard University Press

• Our prayers are prophets.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Prophet, Our Prayers

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2372, Delphi Classics

• Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the way of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Regret, Self

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1993). “Self-reliance, and Other Essays”, p.33, Courier Corporation

• As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Men, Action

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.129, Penguin

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