Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Universe

• Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Success, Determination

• If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Confidence, Self Esteem, Love Yourself

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.56, Harvard University Press

• Everything in our world, even a drop of dew, is a microcosm of the universe.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Nature

• Man is a piece of the universe made alive

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Pieces, Alive

  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.322, Harvard University Press

• There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Suicide, Hope

  "Essays: First Series, Self-Reliance". Book by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841.

• Everything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight lines.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Positive, Positivity, Lines

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Linda Allardt (1982). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.104, Harvard University Press

• By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Angel, Men, Sharks

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.74, Harvard University Press

• There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Self Reliance, Degrees, Fixture

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.93, Graphic Arts Books

• I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expect everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate good. . . . If we will take the good we find, . . . we shall have heaping measures. . . .

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Thanks, I Am Thankful

• If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Beauty, Nature

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.9, Library of America

• though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Self Reliance, Toil, Plot

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.26, Graphic Arts Books

• The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Writing, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.201, Penguin

• The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation, and animation, for he does not stop at these facts, but employs them as signs. He knows why the plain, or meadow of space, was strown with these flowers we call suns, and moons, and stars; why the deep is adorned with animals, with men, and gods; for, in every word he speaks he rides on them as the horses of thought.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Horse, Stars, Flower

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.192, Penguin

• They have seen but half the universe who never have been shown the house of pain.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Pain, Adversity, House

• We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Individuality, Taught, Action

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Portable Emerson”, p.35, Penguin

• Speak as you think, be what you are, pay your debts of all kinds. I prefer to be owned as sound and solvent, and my word as good as my bond, and to be what cannot be skipped, or dissipated, or undermined, to all the eclat in the universe. This reality is the foundation of friendship, religion, poetry, and art.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Creativity, Reality

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.1122, Library of America

• A day is a miniature eternity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Mystery, Eternity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred R. Ferguson (1965). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume V: 1835-1838”, p.142, Harvard University Press

• The philosophy of waiting is sustained by all the oracles of the universe.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Philosophy, Waiting, Oracles

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1975). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1848-1851”, p.15, Harvard University Press

• When the Master of the universe has points to carry in his government he impresses his will in the structure of minds.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Government, Mind, Structure

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

• 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

• Every individual strives to grow and exclude, to the extremities of the universe, and to impose the law of its being on every other creature.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Greatness, Law, Individual

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.21

• The solid, solid universe
  Is pervious to Love;
  With bandaged eyes he never errs,
  Around, below, above.
  His blinding light
  He flingeth white
  On God's and Satan's brood,
  And reconciles
  By mystic wiles
  The evil and the good.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Eye, Light

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph H. Orth, Glen M. Johnson (1994). “The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.347, University of Missouri Press

• Line in Nature is not found; Unit and Universe are round.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Science, Lines

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature, addresses, and lectures”, p.254, Harvard University Press

• The astronomers said, 'Give us matter and a little motion and we will construct the universe. It is not enough that we should have matter, we must also have a single impulse, one shove to launch the mass and generate the harmony of the centrifugal and centripetal forces.' ... There is no end to the consequences of the act. That famous aboriginal push propagates itself through all the balls of the system, and through every atom of every ball.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Should Have, Giving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1491, Delphi Classics

• Power is what they want, not candy-power to execute their design, power to give legs and feet, form and actuality to their thought; which, to a clear-sighted man, appears the end for which the universe exists, and all its resources might be well applied.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Feet, Giving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.365

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