Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 57

• The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Men, Expression

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Jean Ferguson Carr (1987). “The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.222, Harvard University Press

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• We do not live an equal life, but one of contrasts and patchwork; now a little joy, then a sorrow, now a sin, then a generous or brave action.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Change, Joy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

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• If man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Success, Men, Pigs

  Journal, Feb. 1855

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• Great is paint; nay, God is the painter; and we rightly accuse the critic who destroys too many illusions. Society does not love its unmaskers.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Art, Doe

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2388, Delphi Classics

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• He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public. That statement only is fit to be made public, which you have come at in attempting to satisfy your own curiosity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Writing, Curiosity, Fit

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1320, Delphi Classics

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• Best masters for the young writer and speaker are the fault- finding brothers and sisters at home who will not spare him, but willpick and cavil, and tell the odious truth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Brother, Home, Fault Finding

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Waldo Emerson, Waldo Emerson Forbes (1914). “Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1820-1872 [1876] Ed”

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• Our books approach very slowly the things we most wish to know.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Knowledge, Wish

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.197, Graphic Arts Books

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• Of lower states, of acts of routine and sense, we can tell somewhat; but the masterpieces of God, the total growths and universalmovements of the soul, he hideth; they are incalculable. I can know that truth is divine and helpful; but how it shall help me I can have no guess, for so to be is the sole inlet of so to know.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Knowledge, Soul, Growth

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1391, Delphi Classics

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• All I know is reception; I am and I have: but I do not get, and when I fancied I had gotten anything, I found I did not.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Knowledge, Found, Reception

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.491, Library of America

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• I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of today. This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Lying, Book

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.14, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Poverty demoralizes. A man in debt is so far a slave; and Wall-street thinks it easy for a millionaire to be a man of his word, aman of honor, but, that, in failing circumstances, no man can be relied on to keep his integrity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wall, Integrity, Men

  "Wealth". Book by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860.

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• Whatever events in progress shall disgust men with cities, and infuse into them the passion for country life, and country pleasures, will render a service to the whole face of this continent, and will further the most poetic of all the occupations of real life, the bringing out by art the native but hidden graces of the landscape.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Art, Real

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.295

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• The democrat is a young conservative; the conservative is an old democrat. The aristocrat is the democrat ripe, and gone to seed,--because both parties stand on the one ground of the supreme value of property, which one endeavors to get, and the other to keep.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Party, Gone, Politics

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.252, Penguin

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• Whilst the rights of all as persons are equal, in virtue of their access to reason, their rights in property are very unequal. Oneman owns his clothes, and another owns a country.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Clothes, Rights

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.470, Modern Library

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• Personal rights, universally the same, demand a government framed on the ratio of the census: property demands a government framedon the ratio of owners and of owning.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Rights, Government, Demand

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• The whole constitution of property on its present tenures, is injurious, and its influence on persons deteriorating and degrading.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Constitution, Influence, Degrading

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1500, Delphi Classics

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• Intellectual tasting of life will not supersede muscular activity. If a man should consider the nicety of the passage of a piece of bread down his throat, he would starve.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Intellectual, Bread

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.478, Library of America

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• We hear eagerly every thought and word quoted from an intellectual man. But in his presence our own mind is roused to activity, and we forget very fast what he says.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Intellectual, Mind

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.85, Penguin

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• A man of thought must feel the thought that is parent of the universe: that the masses of nature do undulate and flow.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Parent, Flow

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1614, Delphi Classics

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• When the literary class betray a destitution of faith, it is not strange that society should be disheartened and sensualized by unbelief.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Faith, Class, Strange

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.411, Modern Library

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• The scholar was not raised by the sacred thoughts amongst which he dwelt, but used them to selfish ends. He was a profane person,and became a showman, turning his gifts to marketable use, and not to his own sustenance and growth. It was found that the intellect could be independently developed, that is, in separation from the man, as any single organ can be invigorated, and the result was monstrous.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Selfish, Men, Growth

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

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• The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must be an university of knowledges.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Future, Past, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.70, Library of America

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• Lovers should guard their strangeness. If they forgive too much, all slides into confusion and meanness.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, Confusion, Forgiving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.350, Modern Library

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• We must be lovers, and at once the impossible becomes possible.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, Impossible Becomes Possible, Impossible

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1172, Delphi Classics

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• Labor is God's education.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Work, Labor

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.142, Library of America

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