Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Slavery it is that makes slavery; freedom, freedom. The slavery of women happened when the men were slaves of kings.

Every roof is agreeable to the eye, until it is lifted; then we find tragedy and moaning women, and hard-eyed husbands.

A home kept to the end of display is impossible to all but a few women, and their success is dearly bought.

A woman's strength is the irresistible might of weakness.

It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay.

Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier.

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

The eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly & desperately drunk with a certain belief; it agitates & tears him, & almost bereaves him of the power of articulation.

It is alike your interest and mine and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth.

Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered, — every one of the two hundred thousand probably yet to be of utility in the arts. As Bacchus of the vine, Ceres of the wheat, as Arkwright and Whitney were the demi-gods of cotton, so prolific Time will yet bring an inventor to every plant. There is not a property in nature but a mind is born to seek and find it... every application being equivalent to a new material.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.... the poet brings his poem... the farmer, corn... the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it restores society in so far to its primary basis, when a man's biography is conveyed in his gift... But it is a cold, lifeless business, when you go to the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's.

Keep the air. Nature says, 'Thou shalt walk, skate, swim, ride, run.' When you have worn out your shoes, the strength of the sole leather has passed into the fibre of your body. I measure your health by the number of shoes & hats & clothes you have worn out. He is the richest man who pays the largest debt to his shoemaker.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.

Life itself is a mixture of power and form, and will not bear the least excess of either. To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.

When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work , but the solidest thing we know.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.

The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.