Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Revolution

• Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Men, Mind

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

• Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind; and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Keys, Justice

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

• Wherever a man comes, there comes revolution. The old is for slaves.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Revolution, Slave

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred R. Ferguson (1965). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume V: 1835-1838”, p.492, Harvard University Press

• If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Age, Desire

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.73, Penguin

• It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Self, Views

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1287, Delphi Classics

• The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Men, Weak Points

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1808). “Select Essays and Poems”, p.20

• Conservatism, ever more timorous and narrow, disgusts the children, and drives them for a mouthful of fresh air into radicalism.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Air, Radicalism

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.334

• The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, Brother, Character

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Essays”, p.22, Xist Publishing

• Fear is an instructor of great sagacity, and the herald of all revolutions.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Courage, Fear

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1808). “Select Essays and Poems”, p.15

• So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. ... Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Eye, Ideas, Mind

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.48, Library of America

• Revolutions go not backward.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Revolution

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1911). “The Conduct of Life, Nature, and Other Essays”

• The shot heard round the world.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Revolutionary War, Augusta National, April And Spring

  "Concord Hymn" l. 1 (1837)

• There is a tendency in things to right themselves, and the war or revolution or bankruptcy that shatters rotten system, allows things to take a new and natural order.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  War, Order, Rotten

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

• It is said that when manners are licentious, a revolution is always near: the virtue of woman being the main girth and bandage ofsociety; because a man will not lay up an estate for children any longer than whilst he believes them to be his own.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sex, Children, Believe

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte (1982). “Emerson in His Journals”, p.373, Harvard University Press

• The world is always childish, and with each new gewgaw of a revolution or new constitution that it finds, thinks it shall never cry any more.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, World, Revolution

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1973). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1847-1848”, p.328, Harvard University Press

• Under the dominion of an idea, which possesses the minds of multitudes, as civil freedom, or the religious sentiment, the power ofpersons are no longer subjects of calculation. A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom, or conquest, can easily confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions, out of all proportion to their means; as, the Greeks, the Saracens, the Swiss, the Americans, and the French have done.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Mean, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.253, Harvard University Press

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