Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 140

• The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Ideas, Imagination, Employment

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1180, Delphi Classics

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• Many a reformer perishes in his removal of rubbish,--and that makes the offensiveness of the class. They are partial; they are notequal to the work they pretend. They lose their way; in the assault on the kingdom of darkness, they expend all their energy on some accidental evil, and lose their sanity and power of benefit.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Class, Evil, Darkness

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.554, Рипол Классик

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• It is handsomer to remain in the establishment better than the establishment, and conduct that in the best manner, than to make asally against evil by some single improvement, without supporting it by a total regeneration.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Evil, Reform, Improvement

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Essays (Annotated Edition)”, p.314, Jazzybee Verlag

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• The new statement is always hated by the old, and, to those dwelling in the old, comes like an abyss of skepticism.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hate, Dwelling, Innovation

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.264, Harvard University Press

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• In the actual world--the painful kingdom of time and place--dwell care, and canker, and fear. With thought, with the ideal, is immortal hilarity, the rose of joy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Rose, Joy, Hilarity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.328, Library of America

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• As thinkers, mankind has ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness; the first class beginning to think from the data of the senses, the second class perceive that the senses are not final and say, The senses give us representations of things, but what are the things themselves, they cannot tell. The materialist insists on facts, on history, on the force of circumstances and the animal wants of man; the idealists on the power of Thought and Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on individual culture.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspiration, Men, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.4265, Delphi Classics

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• Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into ceremonies and escapes.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Society, Conversation, Ceremony

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.53, Courier Corporation

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• If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains,--if onlythat the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Rain, Eye, Air

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.69, Courier Corporation

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• 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

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• When private men shall act with original views, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Kings, Men, Views

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.171, Harvard University Press

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• We owe to genius always the same debt, of lifting the curtain from the common, and showing us that divinities are sitting disguised in the seeming gang of gypsies and peddlars.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Genius, Sitting, Debt

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

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• Is not, indeed, every man a student, and do not all things exist for the student's behoof?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Students, All Things

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.46, Рипол Классик

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• The philanthropists inquire whether Transcendentalism does not mean sloth: they had as lief hear that their friend is dead, as that he is a Transcendentalist; for then is he paralyzed, and can never do anything for humanity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mean, Humanity, Sloth

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson - The transcendentalist”, p.13, Editora Dracaena

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• We fetch fire and water, run about all day among the shops and markets, and get our clothes and shoes made and mended, and are thevictims of these details, and once in a fortnight we arrive perhaps at a rational moment.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Fire, Shoes

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Jean Ferguson Carr (1987). “The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.357, Harvard University Press

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• All forms of government symbolize an immortal government, common to all dynasties and independent of numbers, perfect where two men exist, perfect where there is only one man.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Independent, Men, Two

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.260

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• Housekeeping is not beautiful; it cheers and raises neither the husband, the wife, nor the child; neither the host nor the guest;it oppresses women. A house kept to the end of prudence is laborious without joy; a house kept to the end of display is impossible to all but a few women, and their success is dearly bought.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beautiful, Cheer, Children

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.93, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

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• The piety of the Hebrew prophets purges their grossness. The circumcision is an example of the power of poetry to raise the low and offensive.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Symbolism, Example, Circumcision

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.209, Harvard University Press

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• A man in a cave or in a camp, a nomad, will die with no more estate than the wolf or the horse leaves.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Horse, Men, Dying

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1871). “Society and Solitude and Other Essays”, p.19

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• I look on Sculpture as history. I do not think the Apollo and the Jove impossible in flesh and blood. Every trait the artist recorded in stone, he had seen in life, and better than his copy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Artist, Thinking, Blood

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.202, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The god or hero of the sculptor is always represented in a transition from that which is representable to the senses, to that which is not.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hero, Transition, Sculpture

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.83

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• A right rule for a club would be, Admit no man whose presence excludes any one topic. It requires people who are not surprised andshocked, who do and let do, and let be, who sink trifles, and know solid values, and who take a great deal for granted.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, People, Would Be

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2495, Delphi Classics

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• It is always a practical difficulty with clubs to regulate the laws of election so as to exclude peremptorily every social nuisance. Nobody wishes bad manners. We must have loyalty and character.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Loyalty, Character, Law

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2495, Delphi Classics

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• A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school,preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not "studying a profession," for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Team, Fall, School

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.129, Penguin

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• Popularity is for dolls.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dolls, Popularity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.820, Modern Library

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• Everything that is popular, it has been said, deserves the attention of philosophers: and this is for the obvious reason, that although it may not be of any worth in itself, yet it characterizes the people.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  People, Attention, May

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.443

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