Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.

Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim.

The reality is more excellent than the report.

Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.

Manners make the fortune of the ambitious youth

The experience of each new age requires a new confession, and the world seems always waiting for its poet

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and new.

Every man has his own vocation, talent is the call.

All history is but the lengthened shadow of a great man

The soul of God is poured into the world through the thoughts of men.

Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good: 'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.

When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.

You never know how you look through other people's eyes.

The sanity of society is a balance of a thousand insanities.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain; and there is no good theory of disease which does not at once suggest a cure.

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

Our globe discovers its bidden virtues, not only in heroes and arch-angels, but in gossips and nurses.

Those who live to the future must always appear selfish to those who live to the present.

Put the argument into a concrete shape, into an image, some hard phrase, round and solid as a ball, which they can see and handle and carry home with them, and the cause is half won.

There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass.

Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being?

Every thought which genius and piety throw into the world alters the world.

Sincerity is the LUXURY allowed, like diadems and authority, only to the highest rank. Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship.