Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 159

• Manners are the happy ways of doing things.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Way, Manners, Hardened

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.380

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• Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a stone; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Positive, Girl

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (191?). “Society and solitude, Letters and social aims”

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• A good intention but fixed and resolute - bent on high and holy ends, we shall find means to them on every side and at every moment; and even obstacles and opposition will but make us "like the fabled specter-ships," which sail the fastest in the very teeth of the wind.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mean, Wind, Overcoming

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• What you are shouts at me so loudly that I can't hear a word you say.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Goal, Words You Say, I Can

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• Go out of the house to see the moon, and't is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Moon, Journey, Light

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.39, Harvard University Press

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• The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-men can do little for him.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Ties, Insanity

  1876 Letters and Social Aims,'The Comic'.

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• Of all tools, an observatory is the most sublime. . . . What is so good in a college as an observatory? The sublime attaches to the door and to the first stair you ascent, that this is the road to the stars.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Stars, College, Doors

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Lee Grossman (2005). “A Year with Emerson: A Daybook”, p.162, David R. Godine Publisher

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• One of the benefits of a college education is to show the boy its little avail.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Boys, College

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.391

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• The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professors of books; and I think no chair is so much needed.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, College, Thinking

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• If in the least particular, one could derange the order of nature, who would accept the gift of life?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Order, Racist, Accepting

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.26, Harvard University Press

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• Spartans, stoics, heroes, saints and gods use short and positive speech.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Hero, Saint

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1954). “The Power of Emerson's Wisdom”

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• Who can . . . guess how much industry and providence and affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Animal, Affection, Caught

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.157

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• Truth is too simple for us: we do not like those who unmask our illusions.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Simple, Simplicity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.256, University of Georgia Press

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• There are men whose manners have the same essential splendor as the simple and awful sculpture on the friezes of the Parthenon, and the remains of the earliest Greek art.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Simple, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Self-Reliance and Other Essays”, p.6, Courier Corporation

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• 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

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• Converse with a mind that is grandly simple, and literature looks like word-catching.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Simple, Simplicity, Mind

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Selected Writings”, p.126, Simon and Schuster

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• Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Men, Compromise

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.367

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• The gentleman is a man of truth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Men, Gentleman

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.343, Modern Library

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• 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

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• If we suddenly plant our foot, and say, - I will neither eat nor drink nor wear nor touch any food or fabric which I do not know to be innocent, or deal with any person whose whole manner of life is not clear and rational, we shall stand still. Whose is so? Not mine; not thine; not his. But I think we must clear ourselves each one by the interrogation, whether we have earned our bread to-day by the hearty contribution of our energies to the common benefit? and we must not cease to tend to the correction of these flagrant wrongs, by laying one stone aright every day.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Heart, Thinking, Feet

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1170, Delphi Classics

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• Indeed the river is a perpetual gala, and boasts each month a new ornament.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Rivers, Environmental, Each Month

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1849). “Nature”, p.17

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• Life is an ecstasy. Life is sweet as nitrous oxide.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sweet, Psychedelic, Life Is

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.484

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• The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitants of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Winter, Snow, Soil

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.63, Courier Corporation

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• Never try to make anyone like you: you know, and God knows, that one of you is enough.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Advice, Trying, Like You

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• I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, mettle and bottom.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Horse, Men, Shoes

  "English Traits". Book by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1856.

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