Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“This is my wish for you: Comfort on difficult days, smiles when sadness intrudes, rainbows to follow the clouds, laughter to kiss your lips, sunsets to warm your heart, hugs when spirits sag, beauty for your eyes to see, friendships to brighten your being, faith so that you can believe, confidence for when you doubt, courage to know yourself, patience to accept the truth, Love to complete your life.” 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, faith looks up.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nothing external to you has any power over you.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.” 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Self-trust is the first secret of success.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The secret in education lies in respecting the student.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Life is a journey, not a destination.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To be great is to be misunderstood.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The earth laughs in flowers.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Be not the slave of your own past - plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The only way to have a friend is to be one."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The sky is the daily bread of the eyes."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We gain the strength of the temptation we resist."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The reward of a thing well done is having done it."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is not length of life, but depth of life."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The first wealth is health."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We aim above the mark to hit the mark."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Men are what their mothers made them."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Every wall is a door."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nobody can bring you peace but yourself."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Hitch your wagon to a star."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Every artist was first an amateur."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A great man is always willing to be little."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The greatest gift is a portion of thyself."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A man is what he thinks about all day long."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The older you get, the older you want to get."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Science does not know its debt to imagination."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We are always getting ready to live but never living.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"What you are comes to you."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Do the thing we fear, and the death of fear is certain."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is the quality of the moment, not the number of days, or events, or of actors, that imports."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person: always do what you are afraid to do."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“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.” 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.” 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Envy is ignorance. Imitation is suicide.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson