Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Society

• To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Positive, Beauty

• Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Wisdom, Taken

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.3128, Delphi Classics

• Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, Reality, Self

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.21, Coyote Canyon Press

• Society does not love its unmaskers.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Society, Doe

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1976). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume XII: 1835-1862”, p.506, Harvard University Press

• No man can have society upon his own terms.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Society, Term

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.178, Harvard University Press

• Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Motivational, Book, Beer

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.134, 谷月社

• We live in a very low state of the world, and pay unwilling tribute to government founded on force. There is not, among the most religious and instructed men of the most religious and civil nations, a reliance on the moral sentiment, and a sufficient belief in the unity of things to persuade them that society can be maintained without artificial restraints, as well as the solar system; or that the private citizen might be reasonable, and a good neighbor, without the hint of a jail or a confiscation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Men, Jail

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2006). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems”, p.265, Bantam Classics

• The plays of children are nonsense, but very educative nonsense. So it is with the largest and solemnest things, with commerce, government, church, marriage, and so with the history of every man's bread, and the ways by which he is to come by it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Marriage, Children, Work

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1993). “Self-reliance, and Other Essays”, p.89, Courier Corporation

• As long as civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Laughter, Wine, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.253, Penguin

• Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Society, Gains

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1808). “Select Essays and Poems”, p.59

• Society is a hospital of incurables.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Society, Hospitals

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.410, Modern Library

• Society always consists in the greatest part, of young and foolish persons.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Society, Foolish, Young

• Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Real, Character, Society

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.119, Harvard University Press

• Besides the general infusion of wit to heighten civility, the direct splendor of intellectual power is ever welcome in fine society, as the costliest addition to its rule and its credit.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Intellectual, Society, Credit

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Essays (Annotated Edition)”, p.256, Jazzybee Verlag

• The longer we live the more we must endure the elementary existence of men and women; and every brave heart must treat society asa child, and never allow it to dictate.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Heart, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.378

• A man is a beggar who only lives to the useful, and, however he may serve as a pin or rivet in the social machine, cannot be saidto have arrived at self-possession.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Self, Society

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.399

• Society always consists, in greatest part, of young and foolish persons. The old, who have seen through the hypocrisy of the courts and statesmen, die, and leave no wisdom to their sons. They believe their own newspaper, as their fathers did at their age.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Father, Believe, Son

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.381, Modern Library

• The cheapness of man is every day's tragedy. It is as real a loss that others should be low, as that we should be low; for we musthave a society.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Real, Loss, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Wallace E. Williams, Joseph Slater (1987). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men: seven lectures”, p.18, Harvard University Press

• When a man meets his make, society begins.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Society

• Solitude is impractical, and society fatal. We must keep our head in the one and our hands in the other. The conditions are met, if we keep our independence, yet do not lose our sympathy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sympathy, Hands, Solitude

• For, the advantages which fashion values, are plants which thrive in very confined localities, in a few streets, namely. Out of this precinct, they go for nothing; are of no use in the farm, in the forest, in the market, in war, in the nuptial society, in the literary or scientific circle, at sea, in friendship, in the heaven of thought or virtue.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fashion, War, Sea

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.94, 谷月社

• Society is an illusion to the young citizen. It lies before him in rigid repose, with certain names, men, and institutions, rootedlike oak-trees to the centre, round which all arrange themselves the best they can. But the old statesman knows that society is fluid; there are no such roots and centres; but any particle may suddenly become the centre of the movement, and compel the system to gyrate round it, as every man of strong will, like Pisistratus, or Cromwell, does for a time, and every man of truth, like Plato, or Paul, does forever.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Plato, Lying

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.161, Graphic Arts Books

• In our Mechanics' Fair, there must be not only bridges, ploughs, carpenter's planes, and baking troughs, but also some few finer instruments,--rain-gauges, thermometers, and telescopes; and in society, besides farmers, sailors, and weavers, there must be a few persons of purer fire kept specially as gauges and meters of character; persons of a fine, detecting instinct, who note the smallest accumulations of wit and feeling in the bystander.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Rain, Character, Bridges

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.488

• It is the fine souls who serve us, and not what is called fine society. Fine society is only a self-protection against the vulgarities of the street and the tavern.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Self, Soul, Society

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.413

• It is bad enough that our geniuses cannot do anything useful, but it is worse that no man is fit for society who has fine traits.He is admired at a distance, but he cannot come near without appearing a cripple.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Integrity, Distance, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.391, Modern Library

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