Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

To a dull mind all of nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.

I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all.

Nothing can work damage to me except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me and never am a real sufferer except by my own fault.

The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.

People do not deserve good writing, they are so pleased with bad.

Love what is simple and beautiful. These are the essentials.

In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth.

Give me wine to wash me clean of the weather-stains of cares

Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear.

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances.

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

Common sense is as rare as genius.

Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed, but our power to do so is increased.

Teach that God is, not was; that He speaketh, not spake.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

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 vulgar things.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong is what is against it.

Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.

People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.

The only true gift is a portion of thyself.