Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 53

• If there be any man who thinks the ruin of a race of men a small matter, compared with the last decoration and completions of hisown comfort,--who would not so much as part with his ice- cream, to save them from rapine and manacles, I think I must not hesitate to satisfy that man that also his cream and vanilla are safer and cheaper by placing the negro nation on a fair footing than by robbing them.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Thinking, Ice Cream

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.754, Modern Library

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• If any mention was made of homicide, madness, adultery, and intolerable tortures, we would let the church-bells ring louder, the church-organ swell its peal and drown the hideous sound. The sugar they raised was excellent: nobody tasted blood in it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Church Bells, Blood, Sound

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.277, Harvard University Press

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• The subject is said to have the property of making dull men eloquent.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Slavery, Dull

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1233, Delphi Classics

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• Give the slave the least elevation of religious sentiment, and he is not slave: you are the slave: he not only in his humility feels his superiority, feels that much deplored condition of his to be a fading trifle, but he makes you feel it too. He is the master.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Humility, Giving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.258

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• It is not what talents or genius a man has, but how he is to his talents, that constitutes friendship and character. The man thatstands by himself, the universe stands by him also.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Men, Genius

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.417

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• A man is the prisoner of his power. A topical memory makes him an almanac; a talent for debate, disputant; skill to get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar. Culture reduces these inflammations by invoking the aid of other powers against the dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers. It watches success.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Memories, Power, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.363

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• A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents. A transcendent talent draws so largely on his forces as tolame him; a defect pays him revenues on the other side.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Pay, Sides

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.333

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• Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue and they will do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Opportunity, Doors, Hands

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.631, Modern Library

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• The uses of travel are occasional, and short; but the best fruit it finds, when it finds it, is conversation; and this is a main function of life.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Travel, Use, Fruit

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.459

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• Our life seems not present, so much as prospective; not for the affairs on which it is wasted, but as a hint of this vast- flowingvigor.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hints, Affair, Our Lives

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.212, Penguin

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• Necessity does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it seems heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Giving, Judging, Doe

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.237

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• For the time of towns is tolled from the world by funereal chimes, but in nature the universal hours are counted by succeeding tribes of animals and plants, and by growth of joy on joy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Time, Animal, Joy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.86, Coyote Canyon Press

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• Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. When that has educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness,to grace, the steps of the dancing-master are better forgotten; so painting teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form, and as I see many pictures and higher genius in the art, I see the boundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dance, Art, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Jean Ferguson Carr (1987). “The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.212, Harvard University Press

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• Bring me wine, but wine which never grew
  In the belly of the grape

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wine, Grapes, Grew

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1979). “Emerson's Literary Criticism”, p.71, U of Nebraska Press

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• Of immortality, the soul, when well employed, is incurious. It is so well, that it is sure that it will be well. It asks no questions of the Supreme Power.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Soul, Immortality, Wells

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2356, Delphi Classics

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• We learn that God IS; that he is in me; and that all things are shadows of him.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Shadow, All Things

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.70, Penguin

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• But the man and woman of seventy assume to know all, they have outlived their hope, they renounce aspiration, accept the actual for the necessary and talk down to the young. Let them then become organs of the Holy Ghost; let them be lovers; let them behold truth; and their eyes are uplifted, their wrinkles smoothed, they are perfumed again with hope and power.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Eye, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.74, Penguin

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• The soul lets no man go without some visitations and holy-days of a diviner presence.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Men, Holy Days

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1528, Delphi Classics

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• As every pool reflects the image of the sun, so every thought and thing restores us an image and creature of the supreme Good. Theuniverse is perforated by a million channels for his activity. All things mount and mount.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Sun, Pool

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.342

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• Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Book, Simple

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.176, Harvard University Press

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• Belief and love,--a believing love will relieve us of a vast load of care. O my brothers, God exists. There is a soul at the centre of nature, and over the will of every man, so that none of us can wrong the universe.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Brother, Believe

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.44, Penguin

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• There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Power, Ends

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.63, Penguin

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• The time is coming when all men will see that the gift of God to the soul is not a vaunting, overpowering, excluding sanctity, buta sweet, natural goodness, a goodness like thine and mine, and that so invites thine and mine to be and to grow.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Sweet, Men

  Address in Divinity College, Cambridge, americanliterature.com. July 15, 1838.

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• If a man is at heart just, then in so far is he God; the safety of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God do enter into that man with justice.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Heart, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.110, Coyote Canyon Press

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• In all conversation between two persons, tacit reference is made, as to a third party, to a common nature. That third party or common nature is not social; it is impersonal; is God.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Party, Two

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Natural Abundance: Ralph Waldo Emerson's Guide to Prosperity”, p.177, Simon and Schuster

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