Always do what you are afraid to do.
Quotations related to: "ralph waldo emerson"
We found 100 matching quotations.
He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds.
In England every man you meet is some man's son in America, he may be some man's father.
There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.
Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
As we grow oldthe beauty steals inward.
God enters by a private door into every individual.
A weed is just a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.
The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.
Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.
If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being.
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well, remembering that she has seen dark times before, indeed with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day.
The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.
That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
The next thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
He who has a thousand friendsHas not a friend to spare,While he who has one enemyShall meet him everywhere.
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the ordinary.
A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.
Be and not seem.
None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.
Adopt the pace of nature.
Thought is the seed of action.
What is the hardest thing in the world To think.
When it is darkest, men see the stars.
People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.
Spiritual force is stronger than material force thoughts rule the world.
Imitation is suicide.
Every artist was first an amateur.
It is not length of life, but depth of life.
Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.
A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.
The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.
Thought is the blossom language the bud action the fruit behind it.
...the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness, the independence of solitude.
A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can.
Work is victory.
There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for many.
What you are shouts so loud in my ears I cannot hear what you say.
To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone.
Fame is proof that people are gullible.
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching.
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
You must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.
For everything you have missed, you have gained something else and for everything you gain, you lose something.
Truth is the summit of being justice is the application of it to affairs.
They say the cows laid out Boston. Well, there are worse surveyors.
Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.
The people are to be taken in very small doses.
Nothing, at last, is sacred; but the integrity of your own mind.
Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.
Proverbs are the literature of reason, or the statements of absolute truth, without qualification. Like the sacred books of each nation, they are the sanctuary of its intuitions.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
The more he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
Wit makes its own welcome and levels all distinctions.
If a man knows the law, find out, though he live in a pine shanty, and resort to him. And if a man can pipe or sing, so as to wrap the imprisoned soul in an elysium; or can paint a landscape, and convey into souls and ochres all the enchantments of Spring or Autumn; or can liberate and intoxicate all people who hear him with delicious songs and verses; it is certain that the secret cannot be kept; the first witness tells it to a second, and men go by fives and tens and fifties to his doors.
There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into a power.
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.
This world we live in is but thickened light.
Nature is a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same.
We know better than we do. We do not yet possess ourselves.
Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.
Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others with out getting a few drops on yourself.
If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.
We aim above the mark to hit the mark.
What greater pain could mortals have than this To see their children dead before their eyes
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies with in us.
The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.
My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock, should find the time in my face.
To fill the hour-that is happiness.
The teaching of politics is that the Government, which was set for protection and comfort of all good citizens, becomes the principal obstruction and nuisance with which we have to contend? The cheat and bully and malefactor we meet everywhere is the Government.
When you strike at a king, you must kill him.
Money often costs too much.
Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions the surest poison is time.
The education of the will is the object of our existence.
As soon as there is life there is danger.
All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance.
There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.
Do what you know and perception is converted into character.
Love is the essence of God.
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.
Life is eating us up. We shall be fables presently. Keep cool it will be all one a hundred years hence.
Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines.
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.
Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.
The only reward of virtue is virtue the only way to have a friend is to be one.
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely...
There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and squirrel.