Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Virtue

• The only way to have a friend is to be one.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Friendship, True Friend

  Essays "Friendship" (1841)

• What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

• 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

• The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Funny, Friendship, Prayer

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Culture, Behavior, Beauty: Books, Art Eloquence. Power, Wealth, Illusions”

• The virtue of books is to be readable.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Writing, Virtue

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco (1982). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.339, Harvard University Press

• The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Humility, Greatness, Essence

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.76, 谷月社

• These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. 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

  Reality, Self, Names

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.42, 谷月社

• Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Greatness, Doors, Unhappy

• But there is no end to the praise of books, to the value of the library. Who shall estimate their influence on our population where all the millions read and write ? It is the joy of nations that man can communicate all his thoughts, discoveries and virtues to records that may last for centuries.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Writing, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1921). “Representative men. Miscellanies”

• A weed is a plant whose virtue is not yet known.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Weed, Virtue, Plant

• The cardinal virtue of a teacher [is] to protect the pupil from his own influence.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Teacher, Influence, Virtue

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1973). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1847-1848”, p.471, Harvard University Press

• Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until at last rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dream, Night, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.199, Penguin

• Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, and all flock to their aid.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hope, Learning, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1136, Delphi Classics

• The unique impression of Jesus upon mankind - whose name is not so much written as ploughed into the history of the world - is proof of the subtle virtue of this infusion. Jesus belonged to the race of prophets. He saw with open eyes the mystery of the soul. One man was true to what is in you and me. He, as I think, is the only soul in history who has appreciated the worth of man.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Jesus, Eye, Men

  Address in Divinity College, americanliterature.com. July 15, 1838.

• Every great institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man. His character determines the character of the organization.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Teamwork, Honesty, Integrity

• Beauty is the mark God sets on virtue. Every natural action is graceful; every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, God, Bystanders

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt McLaughlin (2010). “The Laws of Nature: Excerpts from the Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.21, North Atlantic Books

• He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, Wise, Philosophy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Lee Grossman (2005). “A Year with Emerson: A Daybook”, p.140, David R. Godine Publisher

• The sentiment of virtue is a reverence and delight in the presence of certain divine laws. It perceives that this homely game of life we play, covers, under what seem foolish details, principles that astonish.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Law, Games, Play

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.101, Harvard University Press

• The virtue you would like to have, assume it is already yours, appropriate it, enter into the part and live the character just as the great actor is absorbed in... the part he plays.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Play, Actors

• But whoso is heroic must find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hero, Champion, Trying

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics, Vol. V (in 51 Volumes)”, p.134, Cosimo, Inc.

• There is a capacity of virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Blood, Vices, Virtue

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1968). “Nature: With an Introd., a Note on the Text”

• There never was a strong character that was not made strong by discipline of the will; there never was a strong people that did not rank subordination and discipline among the signal virtues. Subjection to moods is the mark of a deteriorating morality. There is no baser servitude than that of the man whose caprices are his masters, and a nation composed of such men could not long preserve its liberties.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Character, Men

• The only reward of virtue is virtue.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Rewards, Virtue

  Essays "Friendship" (1841)

• He who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the plants, the waters, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments - is the rich and royal man.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sweet, Garden, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.154, Graphic Arts Books

• It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Courage, Heart, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.134, Harvard University Press

You May Also Like:

Henry David Thoreau

Walt Whitman

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Margaret Fuller

Emily Dickinson

Edgar Allan Poe

Herman Melville