Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let him go where he will, he can only find so much beauty or worth as he carries.

Culture opens the sense of beauty.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful we must carry it with us or we will not find it.

Beauty will not come at the call of the legislature.... It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.

We ascribe beauty to that which is simple which has no superfluous parts which exactly answers its ends.

There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy ways of doing things.

Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self.

Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.

Only a biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of a car window.

People destined to meet will do so, apparently by chance, at precisely the right moment.

When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; ... he learns his ignorance, is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill.

Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual.

Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

Power is, in nature, the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself.

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.

One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity.

All sensible people are selfish, and nature is tugging at every contract to make the terms of it fair.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

Skepticism? Yes, but a saint is a skeptic once in twenty-four hours.

Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.

If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.

Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.

This gives force to the strong -- that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action.