Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wonder generates enthusiasm, which is the highest state of character. It's what makes mere curiosity about nature grow into an all-consuming passion. The history of science is full of examples of enthusiasm. Every schoolchild knows the story of Archimedes, who stepped into his bath and realized that water displacement could be used to measure the volume of any object; he then took off running through the streets like a madman, yelling, "Eureka! I've found it!

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone

For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something.

We grizzle every day. I see no need of it. Whilst we converse with what is above us, we do not grow old, but grow young.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.

We should judge society starting with ourselves and our own minds.

Truths will harmonize; and as for the falsities and mistakes, they will speedily die of themselves.

One class live to the utility of the symbol, esteeming health and wealth a final good. Another class live above this mark to the beauty of the symbol, as the poet and artist and the naturalist and man of science. A third class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing signified; these are wise men.

So far, I've spoken of four major benefits of studying natural science: it sends us outdoors, which aids our health; its discoveries drive invention and manufacturing; it's a way of learning truths about the world; and it points the way to wisdom.

It is a proverb that "courtesy costs nothing"; but calculation might come to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be blind, but kindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an eye-water.

The instincts of the ant are very unimportant, considered as the ant's; but the moment a ray of relation is seen to extend from it to man, and the little drudge is seen to be a monitor, a little body with a mighty heart, then all its habits, even that said to be recently observed, that it never sleeps, become sublime.

This sense of harmony between the outside and inside worlds doesn't fade as scientific knowledge increases. Instead, with each new law that science reveals, the analogies between nature and ourselves grow deeper. Every discovery about the universe brings us a greater understanding of ourselves.

One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one man's wisdom another's folly; as one beholds the same objects from a higher point of view. One man thinks justice consists in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who is very remiss in this duty and makes the creditor wait tediously.

I hate quotes: tell me what you know.

The difference between talents and character is adroitness to keep the old and trodden round, and power and courage to make a new road to new and better goals. Character makes an overpowering present, a cheerful, determined hour, which fortifies all the company by making them see that much is possible and excellent that was not thought of. Character dulls the impression of particular events.

There is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of time. As the air I breathe is drawn from the great repositories of nature, as the light on my book is yielded by a star a hundred millions of miles distant, as the poise of my body depends on the equilibrium of centrifugal and centripetal forces, so the hours should be instructed by the ages, and the ages explained by the hours.

It has been said, that "common souls pay with what they do; nobler souls with that which they are.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

That divided and rebel mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these [158] have not. Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces we are disconcerted.

This relation between the mind and matter is not fancied

If you do not need to hear my thought, because you can read it in my face and behavior, then I will tell it you from sunrise to sunset.

you gather apples in the sunshine, or make hay, or

The true poem is the poet's mind; the true ship is the ship-builder.

He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread.