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Ralph Waldo Emerson

Philosopher

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a central figure in the American Transcendentalist movement, celebrated individualism, self-reliance, and the power of nature and intuition. His quotes reflect his profound insights on personal growth, moral courage, and the pursuit of a meaningful life. Together, they offer timeless inspiration to think independently, embrace one’s potential, and live with integrity and purpose.

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Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.
From Self-Reliance and Other Essays
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XXX
Topic: Inspirational
The reward of a thing well done is having done it.
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XXX
Topic: Inspirational
A beautiful woman is a practical poet, taming her savage mate, planting tenderness, hope and eloquence in all whom she approaches.
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XXX
Topic: Relationships
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God.
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XXX
Topic: Religion
Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.
From Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
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XXX
Topic: Philosophical
Everybody we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to interpose between himself and his guest. Does it not seem as if man was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a full rencontre front to front with his fellow?
From Essays on Manners, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Nature, Friendship
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XXX
Topic: Philosophical
Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or safe.
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XXX
Topic: Philosophical
We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation -rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.
From Essays Including Essays, First & Second Series, English Traits, Nature & Considerations by the Way
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XXX
Topic: Education
The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.
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XXX
Topic: Philosophical
Make the most of yourself....for that is all there is of you.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
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XXX
Topic: Inspirational
God will not have his work made manifest by cowards
From Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
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XXX
Topic: Inspirational
Be an opener of doors
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XXX
Topic: Success
As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.
From Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
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XXX
Topic: Religion
Let me admonish you, first of all, to go alone; to refuse the good models, even those most sacred in the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil.
From Divinity School Address
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XXX
Topic: Religion
The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.
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XXX
Topic: Happiness
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
From Journals Of Ralph Waldo Emerson, With Annotations - 1841-1844
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XXX
Topic: Life
Imitation is suicide.
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XXX
Topic: Life
I confess myself utterly at a loss in suggesting particular reforms in our ways of teaching. No discretion that can be lodged with a school-committee, with the overseers or visitors of an academy, of a college, can at all avail to reach these difficulties and perplexities, but they solve themselves when we leave institutions and address individuals.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Education
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
From Emerson in His Journals
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XXX
Topic: Inspirational
None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Success
Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing do it with all your might. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your objective.
~
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Success
Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.
From Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
The reward of a thing well done is having done it.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
A beautiful woman is a practical poet, taming her savage mate, planting tenderness, hope and eloquence in all whom she approaches.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Relationships
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Religion
Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.
From Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Philosophical
Everybody we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to interpose between himself and his guest. Does it not seem as if man was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a full rencontre front to front with his fellow?
From Essays on Manners, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Nature, Friendship
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Philosophical
Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or safe.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Philosophical
We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation -rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.
From Essays Including Essays, First & Second Series, English Traits, Nature & Considerations by the Way
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Education
The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Philosophical
Make the most of yourself....for that is all there is of you.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
God will not have his work made manifest by cowards
From Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
Be an opener of doors
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Success
As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.
From Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Religion
Let me admonish you, first of all, to go alone; to refuse the good models, even those most sacred in the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil.
From Divinity School Address
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Religion
The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Happiness
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
From Journals Of Ralph Waldo Emerson, With Annotations - 1841-1844
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Life
Imitation is suicide.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Life
I confess myself utterly at a loss in suggesting particular reforms in our ways of teaching. No discretion that can be lodged with a school-committee, with the overseers or visitors of an academy, of a college, can at all avail to reach these difficulties and perplexities, but they solve themselves when we leave institutions and address individuals.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Education
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
From Emerson in His Journals
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Success
Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing do it with all your might. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your objective.
~
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Success
Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.
From Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
The reward of a thing well done is having done it.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
A beautiful woman is a practical poet, taming her savage mate, planting tenderness, hope and eloquence in all whom she approaches.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Relationships
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Religion
Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.
From Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Philosophical
Everybody we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to interpose between himself and his guest. Does it not seem as if man was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a full rencontre front to front with his fellow?
From Essays on Manners, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Nature, Friendship
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Philosophical
Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or safe.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Philosophical
We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation -rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.
From Essays Including Essays, First & Second Series, English Traits, Nature & Considerations by the Way
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Education
The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Philosophical
Make the most of yourself....for that is all there is of you.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
God will not have his work made manifest by cowards
From Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
Be an opener of doors
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Success
As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.
From Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Religion
Let me admonish you, first of all, to go alone; to refuse the good models, even those most sacred in the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil.
From Divinity School Address
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Religion
The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Happiness
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
From Journals Of Ralph Waldo Emerson, With Annotations - 1841-1844
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Life
Imitation is suicide.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Life
I confess myself utterly at a loss in suggesting particular reforms in our ways of teaching. No discretion that can be lodged with a school-committee, with the overseers or visitors of an academy, of a college, can at all avail to reach these difficulties and perplexities, but they solve themselves when we leave institutions and address individuals.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Education
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
From Emerson in His Journals
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Inspirational
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Success
Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing do it with all your might. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your objective.
~
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
XXX
Topic: Success
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