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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 131

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An orchard, good tillage, good grounds, seem a fixture, like a gold mine, or a river, to a citizen; but to a large farmer, not much more fixed than the state of the crop.

An orchard, good tillage, good grounds, seem a fixture, like a gold mine, or a river, to a citizen; but to a large farmer, not much more fixed than the state of the crop.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Change, Rivers, Gold
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.177, Penguin

In spite of Virtue and the Muse, Nemesis will have her dues, And all our struggles and our toils Tighter wind the giant coils.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Struggle, Fate, Wind
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Poems”, p.212, The Floating Press

Can rules or tutors educate The semigod whom we await? He must be musical, Tremulous, impressional, Alive to gentle influence Of landscape and of sky And tender to the spirit-touch Of man's or maiden's eye.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Education, Eye, Men
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.363

Who heeds the waste abyss of possibility? The ocean is everywhere the same, but it has no character until seen with the shore or the ship.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ocean, Character, Perception
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.226

My life is superficial, takes no root in the deep world; I ask, When shall I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeinga Universe which I do not use? I wish to exchange this flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight, this fever-glow for a benign climate.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Responsibility, Roots, Perception
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.485

Yourself a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost, cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Hands, Firsts
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1838). “An Address Delivered Before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, 15 July, 1838”, p.27

I find nothing healthful or exalting in the smooth conventions of society. I do not like the close air of saloons. I begin to suspect myself to be a prisoner, though treated with all this courtesy and luxury. I pay a destructive tax in my conformity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Air, Luxury, Pay
Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.280, Harvard University Press

I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward.Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the Spartan fife.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Consistency, Dinner, Lasts
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.134, Harvard University Press

We pray to be conventional. But the wary Heaven takes care you shall not be, if there is anything good in you. Dante was very badcompany, and was never invited to dinner.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Heaven, Care, Dinner
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.282, Penguin

Every act of the man inscribes itself in the memories of his fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is full of sounds;the sky, of tokens; the ground is all memoranda and signatures; and every object covered over with hints, which speak to the intelligent.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Memories, Intelligent, Men
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.191

But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Pain, Play, Ill
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.150, Graphic Arts Books

I am primarily engaged to myself to be a public servant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all men that there is intelligence andgood will at the heart of all things, and even higher and yet higher leadings. These are my engagements; how can your law further or hinder me in what I shall do to men?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Heart, Men, Law
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.175, Рипол Классик

In my dealing with my child, my Latin and Greek, my accomplishments and my money stead me nothing; but as much soul as I have avails. If I am wilful, he sets his will against mine, one for one, and leaves me, if I please, the degradation of beating him by my superiority of strength. But if I renounce my will, and act for the soul, setting that up as umpire between us two, out of his young eyes looks the same soul; he reveres and loves with me.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Children, Latin, Eye
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.168, Penguin

No performance is worth loss of geniality. 'Tis a cruel price we pay for certain fancy goods called fine arts and philosophy.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Art, Kindness, Philosophy
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.366

The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be organized. Man's culture can spare nothing, wants all material. He is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Evil, Enemy
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.88, Harvard University Press

Culture is the suggestion, from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities through which he can modulate the violence of any master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor him against himself. Culture redresses this imbalance, puts him among equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Solitude, Suggestions
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.388

Society cannot do without cultivated men. As soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher wants become imperative.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Society, Culture
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.15, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

Not out of those, on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature, out of terrible Druids and Berserkirs, come at last Alfred and Shakespeare.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Education, Giants, Savages
Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.83, Harvard University Press

I think that the heroism which at this day would make on us the impression of Epaminondas and Phocion must be that of a domestic conqueror. He who shall bravely and gracefully subdue this Gorgon of Convention and Fashion, and show men how to lead a clean, handsome and heroic life amid the beggarly elements of our cities and villages; whoso shall teach me how to eat my meat and take my repose and deal with men, without any shame following, will restore the life of man to splendor, and make his own name dear to all history.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fashion, Men, Thinking

Let the man stand on his feet. Let religion cease to be occasional; and the pulses of thought that go to the borders of the universe, let them proceed from the bosom of the Household.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Feet, Pulse
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.109, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

The household is a school of power. There, within the door, learn the tragi-comedy of human life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
School, Power, Doors
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2738, Delphi Classics

If you follow the suburban fashion in building a sumptuous- looking house for a little money, it will appear to all eyes as a cheap, dear house.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fashion, Money, Eye
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.403

In every landscape, the point of astonishment is the meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the first hillock aswell as from the top of the Alleghanies. The stars at night stoop down over the brownest, homeliest common, with all the spiritual magnificence which they shed on the Campagna, or on the marble deserts of Egypt.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Spiritual, Stars, Night
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.454, Modern Library

The population of the world is a conditional population; these are not the best, but the best that could live in the existing state of soils, gases, animals, and morals: the best that could yet live; there shall be a better, please God.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Animal, Progress, Population
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.297

It is vain to keep a secret from one who has a right to know it. It will tell itself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Secret, Vain, Knows
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1317, Delphi Classics

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