TOPICS
SPEAKERS
HOME
BROWSE TOPICS
BROWSE SPEAKERS
◀ BACK

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

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.
1
2
3
4
This time, like all times, is a very good time - if we but know what to do with it
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
A great man is always willing to be little.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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 which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
From Nature and Selected Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
the mystic must be steadily told,—All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. Let us have a little algebra, instead of this trite rhetoric,—universal signs, instead of these village symbols,—and we shall both be gainers. The history of hierarchies seems to show that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and was at last nothing but an excess of the organ of language.
From The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The religions of the world are the ejaculations of a few imaginative man.
From Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested--'But these impulses may be from below, not from above.' I replied, 'They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil's child, I will live them from the devil.
From Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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 what is against it.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If there is any period one would desire to be born in, ⎯ is it not the age of Revolution; when
the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old, can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
From The American Scholar Self-Reliance Compensation
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
From Self Reliance
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Religion is the perception of that power which constructs the greatness of the centuries out of the paltriness of the hours.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
This outlook, one that said that American history must be the history of nature speaking through men, not of men shaping nature, became the single most powerful force in American intellectual life in the nineteenth century and shaped some of America's greatest works of literature, such as Moby Dick, Leaves of Grass and Walden, as well as generating an American school of philosophy , to be furthered by William James and John Dewey.
From Nature and Other Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It is not the length of life, but the depth.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The South-wind brings
Life, sunshine and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire;
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You become what you think about all day long.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, your're the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
This time, like all times, is a very good time - if we but know what to do with it
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
A great man is always willing to be little.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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 which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
From Nature and Selected Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
the mystic must be steadily told,—All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. Let us have a little algebra, instead of this trite rhetoric,—universal signs, instead of these village symbols,—and we shall both be gainers. The history of hierarchies seems to show that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and was at last nothing but an excess of the organ of language.
From The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The religions of the world are the ejaculations of a few imaginative man.
From Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested--'But these impulses may be from below, not from above.' I replied, 'They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil's child, I will live them from the devil.
From Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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 what is against it.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If there is any period one would desire to be born in, ⎯ is it not the age of Revolution; when
the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old, can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
From The American Scholar Self-Reliance Compensation
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
From Self Reliance
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Religion is the perception of that power which constructs the greatness of the centuries out of the paltriness of the hours.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
This outlook, one that said that American history must be the history of nature speaking through men, not of men shaping nature, became the single most powerful force in American intellectual life in the nineteenth century and shaped some of America's greatest works of literature, such as Moby Dick, Leaves of Grass and Walden, as well as generating an American school of philosophy , to be furthered by William James and John Dewey.
From Nature and Other Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It is not the length of life, but the depth.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The South-wind brings
Life, sunshine and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire;
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You become what you think about all day long.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, your're the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
This time, like all times, is a very good time - if we but know what to do with it
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
A great man is always willing to be little.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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 which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
From Nature and Selected Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
the mystic must be steadily told,—All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. Let us have a little algebra, instead of this trite rhetoric,—universal signs, instead of these village symbols,—and we shall both be gainers. The history of hierarchies seems to show that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and was at last nothing but an excess of the organ of language.
From The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The religions of the world are the ejaculations of a few imaginative man.
From Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested--'But these impulses may be from below, not from above.' I replied, 'They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil's child, I will live them from the devil.
From Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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 what is against it.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If there is any period one would desire to be born in, ⎯ is it not the age of Revolution; when
the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old, can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
From The American Scholar Self-Reliance Compensation
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
From Self Reliance
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Religion is the perception of that power which constructs the greatness of the centuries out of the paltriness of the hours.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
This outlook, one that said that American history must be the history of nature speaking through men, not of men shaping nature, became the single most powerful force in American intellectual life in the nineteenth century and shaped some of America's greatest works of literature, such as Moby Dick, Leaves of Grass and Walden, as well as generating an American school of philosophy , to be furthered by William James and John Dewey.
From Nature and Other Essays
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It is not the length of life, but the depth.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The South-wind brings
Life, sunshine and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire;
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You become what you think about all day long.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, your're the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
1
2
3
4