Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Religion

• All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Trust, Faith, Spiritual

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Natural Abundance: Ralph Waldo Emerson's Guide to Prosperity”, p.107, Simon and Schuster

• The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Life, Atheist

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2728, Delphi Classics

• The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Life, Inspiring

• The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Religion, Spirituality

• Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Humility, Humble

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

• When we have broken our god of tradition, and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with His presence.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Heart, Fire

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.65, Penguin

• The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Life, Happiness

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.26, Courier Corporation

• I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Church Service, Silence

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1969). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VII: 1838-1842”, p.175, Harvard University Press

• The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Faith, Religion, Authority

  'Essays' (1841) 'The Over-Soul'

• 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

• Where dwells the religion? Tell me first where dwells electricity, or motion, or thought or gesture. They do not dwell or stay atall. Electricity cannot be made fast, mortared up and ended, like London Monument, or the Tower, so that you shall know where to find it, and keep it fixed, as the English do with their things, forevermore; it is passing, glancing, gesticular; it is a traveller, a newness, a surprise, a secret which perplexes them, and puts them out.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Secret, Religion, Towers

• Being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of tranquillity that religion is powerless to bestow.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Drinking, Giving, Feelings

• Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my brother, because he has shut his own temple doors and recites fables merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Brother, Doors

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.34, Coyote Canyon Press

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

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Divorce, Religion, Morality

• I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being well dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fashion, Clothes, Giving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.48, Harvard University Press

• Religion is as effectively destroyed by bigotry as by indifference.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religion, Indifference, Destroyed

• The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism, is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion, and making way for truth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Religion, Atheism

  Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, March 04, 1831.

• The first and last lesson of religion is, "The things that are seen, are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal." It puts an affront upon nature.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religion, Atheism, Lessons

  "The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature addresses and lectures", Vol. 1, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Library, 2006.

• Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion we have not chosen but society has chosen for us.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Religion, Occupation

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.20, Penguin

• The religions we call false were once true.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religion, True Religion

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2728, Delphi Classics

• The religions are obsolete when the reforms do not proceed from them.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religion, Reform, Obsolete

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco (1982). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.262, Harvard University Press

• Religion must always be a crab fruit; it cannot be grafted, and keep its wild beauty.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wild Beauty, Religion, Fruit

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

• Each religious sect has its own physiognomy. The Methodists have acquired a face; the Quakers, a face; the nuns, a face. An Englishman will pick out a dissenter by his manners.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Religion, Faces

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.21

• The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Soul, Religion, Withdrawal

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1993). “Self-reliance, and Other Essays”, p.63, Courier Corporation

• I like the church, I like a cowl,
  I love a prophet of the soul;
  And on my heart monastic aisles
  Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles;
  Yet not for all his faith can see,
  Would I that cowled churchman be.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sweet, Fall, Heart

  'The Problem' (1847)

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