Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

The element running through entire nature, which we popularly call Fate, is known to us as limitation. Whatever limits us, we call Fate.

Whence is your power? From my nonconformity. I never listened to your people's law, or to what they call their gospel, and wasted my time.

Visible distance behind and before us, is respectively our image of memory and hope.

The advantage of the ideal theory over the popular faith, is this, that it presents the world in precisely that view which is most desirable to the mind. It is, in fact, the view which Reason, both speculative and practical, that is, philosophy and virtue, take. For, seen in the light of thought, the world always is phenomenal; and virtue subordinates it to the mind.

What is the right use of books? For inspiration. Books exist for your benefit, not you for theirs. Your most precious possession is your own soul. Better to never see a book than to have it pull you out of your orbit, so that your life now revolves around that book instead of around your own soul.

the sour faces of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs. Yet

Ein Freund ist ein Mensch, vor dem man laut denken kann.

Dónde está el maestro que enseñó a Shakespeare? ¿Dónde el que enseñó a Franklin, a Washington, a Bacon, a Newton? Todo gran hombre es único.

If a person is constantly reading and absorbing the thoughts of others, their growth will be stunted. In order to fully develop, we need periods of solitude, self-inquiry, and recovery.

Features well cured make us strong.

My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my web also.

I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right.

education is more precious than that which we call so.

Many times the reading of a book has made the fortune of the man-has decided his way of life. 'Tis a tie between men to have been delighted with the same book.

Philosophically considered, the universe consists of Nature and the Soul.

that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours, a cobler's trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar's garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names.

A mob is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason, and traversing its work. The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these.

Imagination is not a talent of some men, but is health of every man.

Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.

When we speak of nature on this way, we have a awesome however maximum poetical experience within the thoughts. We suggest the integrity of influence made by means of manifold natural objects. It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the timber-cutter, from the tree of the poet.

We boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if we have broken any idols it is through a transfer of the idolatry.

There is a property inside the horizon which no guy has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, this is, the poet.