Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Simplicity

• Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Simple, Greatness, Simplicity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.100, Library of America

• We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, Mean, Simple

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.154, Harvard University Press

• Converse with a mind that is grandly simple, and literature looks like word-catching. The simplest utterances are worthiest to bewritten, yet are they so cheap, and so things of course, that, in the infinite riches of the soul, it is like gathering a few pebbles off the ground, or bottling a little air in a phial, when the whole earth and the whole atmosphere are ours.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Simple, Air, Simplicity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.90, Graphic Arts Books

• A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Real, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.347, Library of America

• Converse with a mind that is grandly simple, and literature looks like word-catching.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Simple, Simplicity, Mind

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Selected Writings”, p.126, Simon and Schuster

• There are men whose manners have the same essential splendor as the simple and awful sculpture on the friezes of the Parthenon, and the remains of the earliest Greek art.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Simple, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Self-Reliance and Other Essays”, p.6, Courier Corporation

• The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. The simplicity of nature is not that which may be easily read but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Nature, Simplicity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.84, Courier Corporation

• Truth is too simple for us: we do not like those who unmask our illusions.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Simple, Simplicity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.256, University of Georgia Press

• It is very hard to be simple enough to be good.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Simple, Simplicity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.117, Courier Corporation

• It the proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Simplicity, Culture, Matter

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1875). “Culture, Behavior, Beauty”, p.95

• A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Loss, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.288

• The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Stars, Flower

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Nature and the Method of Nature”, p.3, Library of Alexandria

• It is the last lesson of modern science, that the highest simplicity of structure is produced, not by few elements, but by the highest complexity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Simplicity, Elements

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1659, Delphi Classics

• The simplest words,--we do not know what they mean except when we love and aspire.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mean, Simplicity, Understanding

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.98, Graphic Arts Books

• Let us learn to live coarsely, dress plainly, and lie hard. The least habit of dominion over the palate has certain good effects not easily estimated.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Lying, Simplicity, Dresses

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1860). “The Conduct of Life”, p.135

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