Famous Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
- The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must... More
- The poor and the low have their way of expressing the last facts of philosophy as well as you.... More
- Generalization is always a new influx of divinity into the mind. Hence the thrill that attends it. More
- To-day I am full of thoughts and can write what I please. I see no reason why I should not have... More
- For you, o broker, there is no other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial... More
- The simplest words,—we do not know what they mean except when we love and aspire. More
- Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a suggestion of that he should be. Men... More
- We sell the thrones of angels for a short and turbulent pleasure. More
- Whilst we converse with what is above us, we do not grow old, but grow young. More
- Be a little careful of your Library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be... More
- I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which must yet have had a long foreground... More
- There is no one who does not exaggerate. In conversation, men are encumbered with personality,... More
- Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, “If you will not lend me... More
- The Frenchman invented the ruffle; the Englishman added the shirt. More
- Government exists to defend the weak and the poor and the injured party; the rich and the strong... More
- The intellect,—that is miraculous! Who has it, has the talisman: his skin and bones, though... More
- If there be any man who thinks the ruin of a race of men a small matter, compared with the last... More
- The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded. More
- If any mention was made of homicide, madness, adultery, and intolerable tortures, we would let... More
- America is not civil, whilst Africa is barbarous. More
- The subject is said to have the property of making dull men eloquent. More
- The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the... More
- The customer is the immediate jewel of our souls. Him we flatter, him we feast, compliment, vote... More
- Slavery is no scholar, no improver; it does not love the whistle of the railroad; it does not... More
- Our age is very cheap and intelligible. Unroof any house, and you shall find it. The well-being... More
- The moral sense is always supported by the permanent interest of the parties. Else, I know not... More
- The blood is moral: the blood is anti-slavery: it runs cold in the veins: the stomach rises with... More
- I may as well say, what all men feel, that whilst our every amiable and very innocent... More
- The civility of the world has reached that pitch that their more moral genius is becoming... More
- Language must be raked, the secrets of slaughter-houses and infamous hole that cannot front the... More
- If the black man is feeble and not important to the existing races, not on a parity with the best... More
- There are many faculties in man, each of which takes its turn of activity, and that faculty which... More
- The superstition respecting power and office is going to the ground. The stream of human affairs... More
- But the strong and healthy yeoman and husbands of the land, the self-sustaining class of... More
- It now appears that the negro race is, more than any other, susceptible of rapid civilization.... More
- The tendency of things runs steadily to this point, namely, to put every man on his merits, and... More
- There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right;... More
- There a captive sat in chains
Crooning ditties treasured well
From his Afric’s torrid... More
- Our civility, England determines the style of, inasmuch as England is the strongest of the family... More
- We sometimes observe that spoiled children contract a habit of annoying quite wantonly those who... More
- It is a doctrine alike of the oldest and of the newest philosophy, that man is one, and that you... More
- But a compassion for that which is not and cannot be useful and lovely, is degrading and futile. More
- The genius of the Saxon race, friendly to liberty; the enterprise, the very muscular vigor of... More
- When at last in a race a new principle appears, an idea—that conserves it; ideas only save races. More
- In every naked negro of those thousands, they saw a future customer. More
- ‘Twill not now avail to tan
Orange cheek or skin of man.
Roses bleach, the goats are... More
- I, Alphonso, live and learn,
Seeing Nature go astern.
Things deteriorate in... More
- As soon as beauty is sought, not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker. More
- Art should exhilarate, and throw down the walls of circumstance on every side, awakening in the... More
- Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. When that has educated the frame to... More
- When its errands are noble and adequate, a steamboat bridging the Atlantic between Old and New... More
- Art is the need to create; but in its essence, immense and universal, it is impatient of working... More
- Thus, historically viewed, it has been the office of art to educate the perception of beauty. We... More
- When science is learned in love, and its powers are wielded by love, they will appear the... More
- Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it,... More
- I now require this of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not that they dazzle me. Pictures... More
- It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to... More
- Thought is the seed of action; but action is as much its second form as thought is its first. More
- The pleasure of eloquence is in greatest part owing often to the stimulus of the occasion which... More
- When I have seen fine statues, and afterwards enter a public assembly, I understand well what he... More
- In eloquence, the great triumphs of the art are when the orator is lifted above himself; when... More
- A squirrel leaping from bough to bough, and making the wood but one wide tree for his pleasure,... More
- The artist who is to produce a work which is to be admired, not by his friends or his... More
- The highest praise we can attribute to any writer, painter, sculptor, builder, is, that he... More
- Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not. More
- A great man is a new statue in every attitude and action. A beautiful woman is a picture which... More
- Nature predominates over the human will in all works of even the fine arts, in all that respects... More
- Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the... More
- Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the... More
- Good poetry could not have been otherwise written than it is. The first time you hear it, it... More
- The universal soul is the alone creator of the useful and the beautiful; therefore to make... More
- The virtue of art lies in detachment, in sequestering one object from the embarrassing variety.... More
- In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive,... More
- No man can quite emancipate himself from his age and country, or produce a model in which the... More
- Each work of art excludes the world, concentrates attention on itself. For the time it is the... More
- And the friend not hesitates
To assign just place and mates;
Answers not in word or... More
- Pure by impure is not seen. More
- There is no king or sovereign state
That can fix a hero’s rate;
Each to all is venerable. More
- If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap, than his... More
- Glittering generalities! They are blazing ubiquities! More
- Let its grapes the morn salute
From a nocturnal root, More
- The rich results of the divine consents More
- The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld;
And in the midst of spoils and slaves, we... More
- Bring me wine, but wine which never grew
In the belly of the grape, More
- And turns the woe of Night,
By its own craft, to a more rich delight. More
- Music and Wine are one. More
- Our books approach very slowly the things we most wish to know. More
- Beauty is the moment of transition, as if the form were just ready to flow into other forms. More
- It does not hurt weak eyes to look into beautiful eyes never so long. More
- The human heart concerns us more than the poring into microscopes, and is larger than can be... More
- When the delicious beauty of lineaments loses its power, it is because a more delicious beauty... More
- Our reliance on the physician is a kind of despair of ourselves. More
- Every spirit makes its house, and we can give a shrewd guess from the house to the inhabitant. More
- We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers... More
- Polarized light showed the secret architecture of bodies; and when the second-sight of the mind... More
- And yet—it is not beauty that inspires the deepest passion. Beauty without grace is the hook... More
- All the facts of nature are nouns of the intellect, and make the grammar of the eternal language.... More
- The bird is not in its ounces and inches, but in its relations to Nature; and the skin or... More
- From a great heart secret magnetisms flow incessantly to draw great events. More
- While thus to love he gave his days
In loyal worship, scorning praise,
How spread their... More
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