Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Selfishness

• The selfish man suffers more from his selfishness than he from whom that selfishness withholds some important benefit.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Selfish, Men, Suffering

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.181, Graphic Arts Books

• We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. (Despite) all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether... The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Kindness, Wind, Selfishness

• The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hatred, Selfishness, Radicalism

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays: First and Second Series”, p.376, Library of America

• Those who live to the future must always appear selfish to those who live to the present.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Time, Selfish, Future

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.502, Library of America

• The greatest meliorator of the world is selfish, huckstering Trade.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Selfish, Selfishness, World

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.84, Harvard University Press

• Every experiment, by multitudes or by individuals, that has a sensual and selfish aim, will fail.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Selfish, Sensual, Failing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1958). “Emerson: A Modern Anthology”

• The worthless and offensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest, invariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and never get over their astonishment at the ingratitude and selfishness of their contemporaries.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, People, Selfishness

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.14

• We legislate against forestalling and monopoly; we would have a common granary for the poor; but the selfishness which hoards thecorn for high prices, is the preventative of famine; and the law of self-preservation is surer policy than any legislation can be.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Self, Law, Common

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1848). “Essays, Orations and Lectures”

• The squirrel hoards nuts and the bee gathers honey, without knowing what they do, and they are thus provided for without selfishness or disgrace.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Work, Squirrels, Nuts

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.109, Modern Library

• Broader and deeper we must write our annals, from an ethical reformation, from an influx of the ever new, ever sanative conscience, if we would trulier express our central and wide-related nature, instead of this old chronology of selfishness and pride to which we have too long lent our eyes. Already that day exists for us, shines in on us at unawares, but the path of science and of letters is not the way into nature. The idiot, the Indian, the child, and unschooled farmer's boy, stand nearer to the light by which nature is to be read, than the dissector or the antiquary.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Eye, Writing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.256, Library of America

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