Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 54

• The civility of the world has reached that pitch that their more moral genius is becoming indispensable, and the quality of this race is to be honored for itself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Race, Quality, Genius

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.775, Modern Library

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• In our definitions, we grope after the spiritual by describing it as invisible. The true meaning of spiritual is real; that law which executes itself, which works without means, and which cannot be conceived as not existing.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Spiritual, Real

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.430

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• The secret of the illusoriness is in the necessity of a succession of moods or objects. Gladly we would anchor, but the anchorageis quicksand.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Change, Anchors, Perception

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1993). “Self-reliance, and Other Essays”, p.88, Courier Corporation

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• Motion or change, and identity or rest, are the first and second secrets of nature: Motion and Rest. The whole code of her laws may be written on the thumbnail, or the signet of a ring.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Change, Law, Secret

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.40, Courier Corporation

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• All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Pain, Heart, Loss

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.305, Library of America

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• If I quake, what matters it what I quake at? Our proper vice takes form in one or another shape, according to the sex, age, or temperament of the person, and, if we are capable of fear, will readily find terrors.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sex, Fear, What Matters

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.210

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• Tis weak and vicious people who cast the blame on Fate. The right use of Fate is to bring up our conduct to the loftiness of nature.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fate, People, Use

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.13, Harvard University Press

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• The element running through entire nature, which we popularly call Fate, is known to us as limitation. Whatever limits us, we callFate.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Fate, Elements

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• Our condition as men is risky and ticklish enough. One can not be sure of himself and his fortune an hour, but he may be whisked off into some pitiable or ridiculous plight.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fate, Men, Plight

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.337, Harvard University Press

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• It is a capital blunder; as you discover, when another man recites his charities.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Charity, Blunders

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.353, Рипол Классик

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• Love should make joy; but our benevolence is unhappy. Our Sunday-schools, and churches, and pauper-societies are yokes to the neck. We pain ourselves to please nobody.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Pain, School, Sunday

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.307, Library of America

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• Every young man is prone to be misled by the suggestions of his own ill-founded ambition which he mistakes for the promptings of asecret genius, and thence dreams of unrivaled greatness.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dream, Mistake, Ambition

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte (1982). “Emerson in His Journals”, p.27, Harvard University Press

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• It is said that when manners are licentious, a revolution is always near: the virtue of woman being the main girth and bandage ofsociety; because a man will not lay up an estate for children any longer than whilst he believes them to be his own.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sex, Children, Believe

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte (1982). “Emerson in His Journals”, p.373, Harvard University Press

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• In certain men digestion and sex absorb the vital force, and the stronger these are, the individual is so much weaker. The more ofthese drones perish, the better for the hive.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sex, Men, Stronger

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.312

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• The reverence for the deeds of our ancestors is a treacherous sentiment. Their merit was not to reverence the old, but to honor the present moment; and we falsely make them excuses of the very habit which they hated and defied.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hate, Honor, Deeds

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.527, Harvard University Press

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• You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him. You send him to the Latin class, but much of histuition comes, on his way to school, from the shop- windows.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Children, Latin

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.75, Harvard University Press

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• The intelligent have a right over the ignorant, namely, the right of instructing them. The right punishment of one out of tune, isto make him play in tune; the fine which the good, refusing to govern, ought to pay, is, to be governed by a worse man; that his guards shall not handle gold and silver, but shall be instructed that there is gold and silver in their souls, which will make men willing to give them every thing which they need.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Responsibility, Intelligent

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• The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Travel, Home

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.278, Library of America

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• If a teacher have any opinion which he wishes to conceal, his pupils will become as fully indoctrinated into that as into any which he publishes.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Teacher, Wish

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1317, Delphi Classics

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• We see young men who owe us a new world, so readily and lavishly they promise, but they never acquit the debt; they die young anddodge the account: or if they live, they lose themselves in the crowd.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Promise, Debt

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.204, Penguin

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• All goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light, is not the intellect or the will, but the master of the intellect and the will; is the background of our being, in which they lie,--an immensity not possessed and that cannot be possessed.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Memories, Lying, Exercise

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.57, Coyote Canyon Press

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• The soul knows only the soul; the web of events is the flowing robe in which she is clothed.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Soul, Events, Robes

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.58, Coyote Canyon Press

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• The evolution of a highly destined society must be moral; it must run in the grooves of the celestial wheels.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Society, Wheels

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.13, Harvard University Press

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• Why should all virtue work in one and the same way? Why should all give dollars? It is very inconvenient to us country folk, and we do not think any good will come of it. We have not dollars; merchants have; let them give them. Farmers will give corn; poets will sing; women will sew; laborers will lend a hand; the children will bring flowers.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Children, Flower

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.43, Penguin

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• Is it not manifest that our academic institutions should have a wider scope; that they should not be timid and keep the ruts of the last generation, but that wise men thinking for themselves and heartily seeking the good of mankind, and counting the cost of innovation, should dare to arouse the young to a just and heroic life; that the moral nature should be addressed in the school-room, and children should be treated as the high-born candidates of truth and virtue?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Wise, Children

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2005). “The Selected Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.51, University of Georgia Press

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