Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 69

• The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Adventure, Understanding, Want

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.208

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• Many of the historical proverbs have a doubtful paternity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Historical, Doubtful

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2611, Delphi Classics

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• Whatever we think and say is wonderfully better for our spirits and trust in another mouth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Mouths, Spirit

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2613, Delphi Classics

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• We may like well to know what is Plato’s and what is Montesquieu’s or Goethe’s part, and what thought was always dear to the writer himself; but the worth of the sentences consists in their radiancy and equal aptitude to all intelligence. They fit all our facts like a charm. We respect ourselves the more that we know them.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Plato, May, Aptitude

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2614, Delphi Classics

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• When a man thinks happily, he finds no foot-track in the field he traverses. All spontaneous thought is irrespective of all else.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Thinking, Feet

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.106, Harvard University Press

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• The divine gift is ever the instant life, which receives and uses and creates, and can well bury the old in the omnipotency with which Nature decomposes all her harvest for recomposition.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Use, Harvest, Divine

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Lee Grossman (2005). “A Year with Emerson: A Daybook”, p.220, David R. Godine Publisher

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• Let us not look east and west for materials of conversation, but rest in presence and unity. A just feeling will fast enough supply fuel for discourse, if speaking be more grateful than silence. When people come to see us, we foolishly prattle, lest we be inhospitable. But things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Grateful, Eggs, People

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.369, University of Georgia Press

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• The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it... ''Beware of me,'' it says, ''but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Keys, Sea, Land

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2291, Delphi Classics

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• As many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades, so many times is he a man.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Men, Language

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.393

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• The brevity of human life gives a melancholy to the profession of the architect.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Giving, Architecture, Melancholy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1973). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1847-1848”, p.382, Harvard University Press

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• Tis the privilege of Art Thus to play its cheerful part, Man on earth to acclimate And bend the exile to his fate.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Fate, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Essays (Annotated Edition)”, p.178, Jazzybee Verlag

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• It depends little on the object, much on the mood, in art.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Littles, Mood

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1969). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VII: 1838-1842”, p.46, Harvard University Press

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• Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function; living is the functionary.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Thinking, Function

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, p.12, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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• No man gains credit for his cowardly courtesies.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Credit, Gains

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1963). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.321, Harvard University Press

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• Instead of making Christianity a vehicle of truth, you make truth only a horse for Christianity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Christian, Horse, Christianity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.45, Harvard University Press

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• Cities degrade us by magnifying trifles.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Cities, Trifles, Magnifying

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.396

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• What is the city in which we sit here, but an aggregate of incongruous materials, which have obeyed the will of some man?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Cities, Materials

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.424, Harvard University Press

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• The great majority of men grow up and grow old in seeming and following.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Growing Up, Men, Majority

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.3928, Delphi Classics

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• What is civilization? I answer, the power of good women.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Civilization, Good Woman, Answers

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1911). “The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson ...: v.1-”

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• My own mind is the direct revelation which I have from God and far least liable to mistake in telling his will of any revelation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mistake, Mind, Revelations

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.53, Courier Corporation

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• How much finer things are in composition than alone.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Harmony, Finer Things, Composition

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.198, Harvard University Press

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• The riddle of the age has for each a private solution.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Age, Individual, Riddle

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2254, Delphi Classics

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• Every man is entitled to be valued by his best moment.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Judging, Every Man

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.1102, Library of America

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• If you would know what nobody knows, read what everybody reads, just one year afterwards.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Knowledge, Years, Nobody Knows

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.106, University of Georgia Press

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• A human being should beware how he laughs, for then he shows all his faults.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Laughter, Laughing, Faults

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1969). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VII: 1838-1842”, p.115, Harvard University Press

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