Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 160

• One of our statesmen said, "The curse of this country is eloquent men."

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Men, Said

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.38, Harvard University Press

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• What school, college, or lecture bring men depends on what men bring to carry it home in.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Home, School, College

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• The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is - Imbecility; imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and, even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hero, Men, Keys

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.344

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• The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Men, Costumes

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics, Vol. V (in 51 Volumes)”, p.86, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Plato, Philosophy, Men

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• Men are lenses through which we read our own minds.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Mind, Lenses

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.6

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• Men lose their tempers in defending their taste.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Taste, Temper

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1963). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.64, Harvard University Press

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• In America the geography is sublime, but the men are not; the inventions are excellent, but the inventors one is sometimes ashamed of.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, America, Sublime

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.452

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• Never utter the truism but live it among men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Truism

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred R. Ferguson (1965). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume V: 1835-1838”, p.21, Harvard University Press

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• I like man, but not men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.141, Penguin

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• Men are better than this theology.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Theology

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Natural Abundance: Ralph Waldo Emerson's Guide to Prosperity”, p.151, Simon and Schuster

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• A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no lustre as you turn it in your hand until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors. There is no adaptation or universal applicability in men, but each has his special Talent, and the mastery of Successful men consists in adroitly keeping themselves where and when that turn shall be oftenest to be practiced.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beautiful, Successful, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “Essays”, p.287, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• America is a country of young men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Men, America

  'Society and Solitude' (1870) 'Old Age'

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• There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity i am bought and sold; for them i will go to prison, if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies; - though i confess with shame i sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by and by i shall have the manhood to withhold.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Spiritual, College, Class

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.12, Penguin

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• A man must consider what a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Games, Self Reliance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.132, Harvard University Press

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• The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Distance, Greatness, Average

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.266, Library of America

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• Whence, then, this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Past, Soul, Self Reliance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.173, Harvard University Press

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• He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Self Reliance, Reliance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.29, Coyote Canyon Press

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• Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdom which cannot help itself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Self Reliance, Suffering, Kingdoms

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

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• Let a stoic open the resources of man, and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Exercise, Men, Self

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.178, Harvard University Press

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• Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories and criticism.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Father, Writing, Self Reliance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.34, Harvard University Press

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• Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Twilight, Sky, Snow

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.31, Harvard University Press

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• For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem, - a thought so passionate and alive that like the spirit of a plant or an animal it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Animal, Self Reliance, Passionate

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.450, Library of America

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• Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is descending into us from we know not whence.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Self Reliance, Source

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.237, Modern Library

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• The poise of a plant, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every vegetable and animal, are also demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul. All history from its highest to its trivial passages is the various record of this power.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Animal, Self

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