Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 158

• I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore, With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, Weed, Home

  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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• Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick or aged. In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused, when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Morning, Men, Sick

  Essays, Second Series "New England Reformers" (1844)

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• 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

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• The truth, the hope of any time, must always be sought in minorities.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hope, Time, Truth

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1875). “Letters and Social Aims”, p.174

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• When you have worn out your shoes, the strength of the show fiber has passed into your body.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Shoes, Body

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• Law of Contrariness: Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hate, Law, Apathy

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• Go, speed the stars of Thought On to their shining goals; - The sower scatters broad his seed, The wheat thou strew'st be souls.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Stars, Goal, Shining

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.330, Delphi Classics

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• Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence, the book-learned class, who value books, as such; not as related to nature and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate with the world and the soul. Hence, the restorers of readings, the emendators, the bibliomaniacs of all degrees.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Reading, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.153, Courier Corporation

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• The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue; and no genius can long or often utter anything which is not invited and gladly entertained by men around him.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Loss, Men, Long

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2125, Delphi Classics

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• The highest virtue is always against the law.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Law, Virtue, Highest

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph H. Orth, Glen M. Johnson (1994). “The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.115, University of Missouri Press

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• I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Work, Learning, Sacrifice

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.69, Penguin

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• To laugh often and much ... this is to have succeeded. Probably not from Emerson: here's the full quotation and the story.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Laughing, Stories, Laugh Often

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• Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory. Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Gratitude, Prayer, Memories

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1191, Delphi Classics

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• If it costs ten years, and ten to recover the general prosperity, the destruction of the South is worth so much.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  War, Years, Cost

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• Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. 'Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Land, Squares

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.1081, Library of America

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• Are you not scared by seeing that the gypsies are more attractive to us than the apostles?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Scared, Gypsy, Attractive

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.245, Harvard University Press

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• When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick,-no more. They eat your service like apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel you, and delight in you all the time.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Apples, Intellectual, Delight

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.239

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• Plants are the young of the world, vessels of health and vigor; but they grope ever upward towards consciousness; the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Tree, Vigor

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1490, Delphi Classics

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• The only reward of virtue is virtue.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Rewards, Virtue

  Essays "Friendship" (1841)

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• Do not spill thy soul in running hither and yon, grieving over the mistakes and the vices of others. The one person whom it is most necessary to reform is yourself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Mistake, Grieving

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• 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

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• A man cannot speak but he judges himself

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Judging, Judgement

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.294, Library of America

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• It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made, that we exist

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Discovery, Unhappy, Too Late

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.240, Harvard University Press

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• Prosperity is something the businessmen created for politicians to take credit for

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Credit, Prosperity

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• A fly is as untamable as a hyena.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Animal, Hyenas

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.1092, Library of America

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