Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 127

• If we consider what happens in conversation, in reveries, in remorse, in times of passion, in surprises, in the instructions of dreams, wherein often we see ourselves in masquerade,--the droll disguises only magnifying and enhancing a real element, and forcing it on our distinct notice,--we shall catch many hints that will broaden and lighten into knowledge of the secret of nature.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dream, Real, Passion

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.122

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• Nobody is glad in the gladness of another, and our system is one of war, of an injurious superiority. Every child of the Saxon race is educated to wish to be first. It is our system; and a man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets, envies, and hatreds of his competitors.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Regret, War

  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.13, Harvard University Press

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• It is easy to carp at colleges, and the college, if he will wait for it, will have its own turn. Genius exists there also, but will not answer a call of a committee of the House of Commons. It is rare, precious, eccentric, and darkling.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  College, House, Waiting

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• Oxford is a little aristocracy in itself, numerous and dignified enough to rank with other estates in the realm; and where fame and secular promotion are to be had for study, and in a direction which has the unanimous respect of all cultivated nations.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Respect, Oxford, Aristocracy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.354, Penguin

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• The university must be retrospective. The gale that gives direction to the vanes on all its towers blows out of antiquity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Blow, Giving, Towers

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.356, Penguin

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• What new thoughts are suggested by seeing a face of country quite familiar, in the rapid movement of the rail-road car!

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Car, Movement

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.161

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• A Gothic cathedral affirms that it was done by us and not done by us.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Done, Gothic, Cathedrals

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.268, Harvard University Press

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• The Gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone subdued by the insatiable demand of harmony in man.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Demand, Stones

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.227, Рипол Классик

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• To eat bread is one thing; to love the precepts of Christ and resolve to obey them is quite another.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Bread, Christ, Communion

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.9, Harvard University Press

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• Railroad iron is a magician's rod, in its power to evoke the sleeping energies of land and water.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sleep, Power, Land

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.293

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• The goof man, in dealing with his people, taxes them with luxury.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Luxury, People

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2920, Delphi Classics

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• In vain produced, all rays return;
  Evil will bless, and ice will burn.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Ice, Evil, Rays

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.398, Рипол Классик

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• The true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to the people his life,--life passed through the fire of thought.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fire, People, Preacher

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Portable Emerson”, p.70, Penguin

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• Whenever the pulpit is usurped by a formalist, then is the worshipper defrauded and disconsolate.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Pulpit, Worshippers

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.119, Harvard University Press

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• We commonly say that the rich man can speak the truth, can afford honesty, can afford independence of opinion and action;--and that is the theory of nobility. But it is the rich man in a true sense, that is to say, not the man of large income and large expenditure, but solely the man whose outlay is less than his income and is steadily kept so.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Honesty, Men, Independence

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.675, Modern Library

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• The lord is the peasant that was,
  The peasant is the lord that shall be.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Lord, Peasants

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Poetry”, p.72, Harvard University Press

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• What forests of laurel we bring, and the tears of mankind, to those who stood firm against the opinion of their contemporaries!

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Tears, Forests, Opinion

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

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• The God who made New Hampshire
  Taunted the lofty land
  With little men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Land, Littles

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.509, Harvard University Press

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• What care though rival cities soar
  Along the stormy coast,
  Penn's town, New York, Baltimore,
  If Boston knew the most!

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  New York, Boston, Cities

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.216, Delphi Classics

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• I do not speak with any fondness but the language of coolest history, when I say that Boston commands attention as the town whichwas appointed in the destiny of nations to lead the civilization of North America.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Destiny, Boston, Civilization

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, John H. Woods, James Elliot Cabot (1887). “The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: A memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson”

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• My gentleman gives the law where he is; he will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the field, and outshine all courtesy in the hall. He is good company for pirates, and good with academicians; so that it is useless to fortify yourself against him; he has the private entrance to all minds, and I could as easily exclude myself, as him.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Law, Giving, Pirate

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Essays”, p.43, Xist Publishing

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• Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentimentin mankind; so that the power of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea over land and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, I look upon as a fine meter of civilization.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Sea, Land

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.434, Harvard University Press

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• But, if we explore the literature of Heroism, we shall quickly come to Plutarch, who is its Doctor and historian. To him we owe the Brasidas, the Dion, the Epaminodas, the Scipio of old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all the ancient writers. Each of his "Lives" is a refutation to the despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A wild courage, a Stoicism not of the schools, but of the blood, shines in every anecdote, and had given that book immense fame.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Book, School

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.281, Modern Library

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• The law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state superinduces the opposite.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Law, Opposites, States

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.91

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• The field cannot be well seen from within the field. The astronomer must have his diameter of the earth's orbit as a base to fix the parallax of any other star

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Stars, Orbit, Earth

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.96, Graphic Arts Books

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