Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Sacrifice

• Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Happiness, Sacrifice, Good Man

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2581, Delphi Classics

• Self sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Real, Sacrifice, Self

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.127, Harvard University Press

• When a man becomes a conformist, he is sacrificing the richness of independent thinking.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Independent, Sacrifice, Men

• The greatest difficulty is that men do not think enough of themselves, do not consider what it is that they are sacrificing when they follow in a herd, or when they cater for their establishment.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Respect, Self Esteem, Sacrifice

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.49, Harvard University Press

• I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Work, Learning, Sacrifice

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.69, Penguin

• Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow. Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. The louder he talked of his honesty, the quicker we counted the silverware.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Honesty, Real

• The whole of what we know is a system of compensation. Every defect in one manner is made up in another. Every suffering is rewarded; every sacrifice is made up; every debt is paid.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sacrifice, Suffering, Debt

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Lee Grossman (2005). “A Year with Emerson: A Daybook”, p.45, David R. Godine Publisher

• Would we codify the laws that should reign in households, and whose daily transgression annoys and mortifies us, and degrades our household life, we must adorn every day with sacrifices. Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sacrifice, Law, Good Man

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2581, Delphi Classics

• Self-love is, in almost all men, such an over-weight that they are incredulous of a man's habitual preference of the general good to his own; but when they see it proved by sacrifices of ease, wealth, rank, and of life itself, there is no limit to their admiration.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sacrifice, Love Is, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2499, Delphi Classics

• The merit of those who fill a space in the world's history, who are borne forward, as it were, by the weight of thousands whom they lead, shed a perfume less sweet than do the sacrifices of private virtue.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sweet, Sacrifice, Space

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1921). “Representative men. Miscellanies”

• The farmer after sacrificing pleasure, taste, freedom, thought, love, to his work, turns out often a bankrupt, like the merchant.This result might well seem astounding. All this drudgery, from cockcrowing to starlight, for all these years, to end in mortgages and the auctioneer's flag, and removing from bad to worse. It is time to have the thing looked into, and with a sifting criticism ascertained who is the fool.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sacrifice, Years, Criticism

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.301

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