Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Understanding

• The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Life, Wisdom

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.60, Penguin

• Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Peace

• Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Wise, Wisdom

  Essays "Self-Reliance" (1841)

• Knowledge is the antidote to fear

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Tattoo, Spiritual, Wisdom

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.132, Harvard University Press

• You think that your silence on certain topics, perhaps in the face of injustice, or unkindness, or mean-spiritedness, causes others to reserve judgement of you. Far otherwise; your silence utters very loud: you have no oracle to speak, no wisdom to offer, and your fellow men have learned that you cannot help them. Doth not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice? We would be well to do likewise.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Kindness, Mean, Men

• Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Horse, Power, Understanding

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1880). “Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”

• Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Appreciate, Understanding

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1969). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VII: 1838-1842”, p.347, Harvard University Press

• No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Men, Objectivity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1305, Delphi Classics

• There are not in the world at any one time more than a dozen persons who read and understand Plato:-never enough to pay for an edition of his works; yet to every generation these come duly down, for the sake of those few persons, as if God brought them written in his hand.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Time, Plato, Hands

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1321, Delphi Classics

• Experience is the only teacher, and we get his lesson indifferently in any school.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Teacher, School, Understanding

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

• The best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere people.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Perfect, People, Understanding

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.102, Harvard University Press

• The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Adventure, Understanding, Want

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.208

• A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and virtue, will purge the eyes to understanding her text.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Truth, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.154

• A man cannot utter two or three sentences without disclosing to intelligent ears precisely where he stands in life and thought, whether in the kingdom of the senses and the understanding, or in that of ideas and imagination, or in the realm of intuitions and duty.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Intelligent, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.434

• The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Time, Long, Understanding

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.170, Modern Library

• It is a luxury to be understood.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Luxury, Understanding, Understood

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1963). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1826-1832”

• There is no doctrine of the Reason which will bear to be taught by the Understanding.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Knowledge, Understanding, Doctrine

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1120, Delphi Classics

• Good as is discourse, silence is better, and shames it. The length of the discourse indicates the distance of thought betwixt the speaker and the hearer. If they were at a perfect understanding in any part, no words would be necessary thereon. If at one in all parts, no words would be suffered.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Distance, Perfect, Silence

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.192, Harvard University Press

• The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Disappointment, Loss, Years

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Compensation and Self-Reliance”, p.29, Cosimo, Inc.

• 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

• Success in your work, the finding a better method, the better understanding that insures the better performing is hat and coat, is food and wine, is fire and horse and health and holiday. At least, I find that any success in my work has the effect on my spirits of all these.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Success, Horse, Wine

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.318, Courier Corporation

• We are sure that, though we know not how, necessity does comport with liberty, the individual with the world, my polarity with thespirit of the times. The riddle of the age has for each a private solution.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Understanding, Age, Liberty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.943, Library of America

• I know nothing which life has to offer so satisfying as the profound good understanding, which can subsist, after much exchange ofgood offices, between two virtuous men, each of whom is sure of himself, and sure of his friend. It is a happiness which postpones all other gratifications, and makes politics, and commerce, and churches, cheap.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Men, Two

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1460, Delphi Classics

• At present, man applies to nature but half his force. He works on the world with his understanding alone. He lives in it, and masters it by a penny-wisdom; and he that works most in it, is but a half-man, and whilst his arms are strong and his digestion good, his mind is imbruted, and he is a selfish savage.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Selfish, Work

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.46, Library of America

• My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we go on from explanation to explanation, until all is said that words can, and we leave matters just as they were at first, because of that vicious assumption.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Understanding, Goes On, Matter

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays: First and Second Series”, p.399, Library of America

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