Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Privacy

• Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until at last rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dream, Night, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.199, Penguin

• Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Truth, Honesty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.1122, Library of America

• Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Age, Reform, Opinion

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.16, Graphic Arts Books

• THE POET A moody child and wildly wise Pursued the game with joyful eyes, Which chose, like meteors, their way, And rived the dark with private ray: They overleapt the horizon's edge, Searched with Apollo's privilege; Through man, and woman, and sea, and star, Saw the dance of nature forward far; Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times, Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes. Olympian bards who sung Divine ideas below, Which always find us young, And always keep us so.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Stars, Children

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.112, Graphic Arts Books

• In private places, among sordid objects, an act of truth or heroism seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple, the sun as its cradle. Nature stretches out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Greatness, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “Miscellanies, embracing Nature, addresses, and lectures”, p.19

• 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

• Deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Honesty, Gambling, Lasts

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.1122, Library of America

• There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated. No secret can be kept in the civilized world. Society is a masked ball where everyone hides his real character, then reveals it by hiding

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Real, Character, Secret

• Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
  Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
  Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
  Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
  And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
  The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
  Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
  Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Winter, Garden, Rivers

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.83, Delphi Classics

• The saint and poet seek privacy to ends the most public and universal: and it is the secret of culture, to interest the man more in his public, than in his private quality.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Solitude, Secret

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.398

You May Also Like:

Henry David Thoreau

Walt Whitman

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Margaret Fuller

Emily Dickinson

Edgar Allan Poe

Herman Melville