Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime.

Transcendentalists assert that the human mind is the same—and just as open to inspiration—across all boundaries of geography, culture, race, and religion. They celebrate the expansive, daring explorations of the Eastern mind, and find much wisdom in Hinduism and Buddhism.

But how insular and pathetically solitary are all the people we know! Nor dare they tell what they think of each other when they meet in the street. We have a fine right, to be sure, to taunt men of the world with superficial and treacherous courtesies!

Self-trust is the first secret of success, the belief that if you are here the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause, or with some task strictly appointed you in your constitution, and so long as you work at that you are well and successful. It by no means consists 22 SUCCESS in rushing prematurely to a showy feat that shall catch the eye and satisfy spectators. It is enough if you work in the right direction.

Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature.

Man desires to be free and he desires to feel important. This places him in a dilemma, for the more he emancipates himself from necessity the less important he feels. That is why so many actes gratuites are criminal: a man asserts his freedom by disobeying a law and retains a sense of self-importance because the law he has disobeyed is an important one. Much crime is magic, an attempt to make free with necessity.

Ghost-like we glide through nature, and should not know our place again.

arts become frivolous. Science grows cold and inhumane. There are no heroes, only celebrities. Social bonds are broken. People no longer care for each other, but only for what they can get from each other.

Treat men as pawns and ninepins and you shall suffer as well as they. If you leave out their heart, you shall lose your own.

Oblivion here thy wisdom is, Thy thrift, the sleep of cares; For a proud idleness like this Crowns all thy mean affairs.

Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.

What we call obscure condition or vulgar society is that condition and society whose poetry is not yet written, but which you shall presently make as enviable and renowned as any.

It makes no difference whether the appeal is to numbers or to one. The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

Time like space, is part of the permanent context of life. Time does not pass, we pass.

Wise men read very sharply all your private history in your look and gait and behavior. The whole economy of nature is bent on expression. The telltale body is all tongues.

Man is surprised to find that things near are not less beautiful and wondrous than things remote. The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature.

But what is classification but the perceiving that these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law which is also a law of the human mind?

We see insurmountable multitudes obeying, in opposition to their strongest passions, the restraints of a power which they scarcely perceive, and the crimes of a single individual marked and punished at the distance of half the earth.

A deep man, believes that the evil eye can wither, that the heart's blessing can heal, and that love can overcome all odds

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact

And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.

The last chamber, the last closet, he must feel, was never opened; there is always a residuum unknown, unanalyzable. That is, every man believes that he has a greater possibility.

What your heart thinks great is great. The soul's emphasis is always right.

Shallow people believe in luck and in circumstances; Strong people believe in cause and effect.