Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 60

• Every materialist will be an idealist; but an idealist can never go backward to be a materialist.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Idealism, Idealist

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.89, Penguin

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• A good indignation makes an excellent speech.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Speech, Excellent, Indignation

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.65, Harvard University Press

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• All ages of belief have been great; all of unbelief have been mean.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mean, Age, Belief

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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• The multitude of false churches accredits the true religion.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Church, True Religion, Multitudes

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Essays”, p.133, Open Road Media

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• The test of civilization is the power of drawing the most benefit out of cities.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Civilization, Cities, Drawing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.372, University of Georgia Press

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• A system-grinder hates the truth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hate, Grinder

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stephen E. Whicher (1959). “The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.327, Harvard University Press

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• Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes: it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something else is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Taken, Gains

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Self-Reliance and Other Essays”, p.36, Courier Corporation

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• You've got to be taught to be afraid
  Of people whose eyes are oddly made
  And people whose skin is a different shade.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Eye, People, Skins

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• Life has a way of demanding that you live it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Way

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• I have never met a man who was not my superior in some particular.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Mets, Particular

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• Give me truths for I am weary of the surfaces.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Giving, Surface, Weary

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1841-1843”, p.435, Harvard University Press

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• There is a principle which is the basis of things, which all speech aims to say, and all action to evolve, a simple, quiet, undescribed, undescribable presence, dwelling very peacefully in us, our rightful lord: we are not to do, but to let do; not to work, but to be worked upon.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Simple, Dwelling, Principles

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.399

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• To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Mind, Body

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature, addresses, and lectures”, p.13, Harvard University Press

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• So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in this history of the globe.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Believe, Soul, Facts

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.102, Coyote Canyon Press

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• I find it more credible, since it is anterior information, that one man should know heaven, as the Chinese say, than that so many men should know the world.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Heaven, Chinese

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.215

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• A right rule for a club would be,-Admit no man whose presence excludes any one topic.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Would Be, Clubs

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2495, Delphi Classics

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• The only compensation which war offers for its manifold mischiefs, is in the great personal qualities to which it gives scope and occasion.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  War, Personal Qualities, Giving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1911). “Works: English traits, Conduct of life”

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• I take this evanescence and lubricity of all objects, which lets them slip through our fingers then when we clutch hardest, to be the most unhandsome part of our condition.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Evanescence, Fingers, Hardest

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.473, Library of America

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• I find it a great and fatal difference whether I court the Muse, or the Muse courts me. That is the ugly disparity between age and youth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Differences, Age, Ugly

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.317, Courier Corporation

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• Profound sincerity is the only basis of talent as of character.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Profound, Talent

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1904). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: With a Biographical Introduction and Notes”

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• I think no virtue goes with size.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Size, Virtue

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.235, Delphi Classics

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• Every man has a choice between love of truth and love of repose. Love of repose brings him a solid reputation and peaceful life; love of truth keeps him in suspense. A man who loves truth respects the highest law of his being.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love Life, Men, Law

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• I like my boy with his endless sweet soliloquies and iterations and his utter inability to conceive why I should not leave all my nonsense, business, and writing and come to tie up his toy horse, as if there was or could be any end to nature beyond his horse. And he is wiser than we when [he] threatens his whole threat "I will not love you."

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sweet, Horse, Love You

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1959). “Emerson: A Modern Anthology”

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• But we need not fear that we can lose any thing by the progress of the soul. The soul may be trusted to the end.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Soul, Progress, Needs

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1335, Delphi Classics

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• What a man does, that he has. What has he to do with hope or fear? In himself is his might. Let him regard no good as solid but that which is in his nature, and which must grow out of him as long as he exists. The goods of fortune may come and go like summer leaves; let him scatter them on every wind as the momentary signs of his infinite productiveness.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Summer, Men, Wind

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.86, Courier Corporation

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