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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 136

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A man is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say a word to his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his silence with as much reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the shade.

A man is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say a word to his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his silence with as much reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the shade. In the sun it will mark the hour. Among those who enjoy his thought, he will regain his tongue.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cousin, Uncles, Men
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.350, Library of America

Conversation is an evanescent relation,--no more.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Conversation, Relation
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1848). “Essays, Orations and Lectures”, p.122

In all things I would have the island of a man inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all round Olympus. No degree of affection need invade this religion.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Islands, Talking
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.522, Library of America

He only is rich who owns the day.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Independence, Rich
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1871). “Society and Solitude and Other Essays”, p.150

Let us learn to live coarsely, dress plainly, and lie hard. The least habit of dominion over the palate has certain good effects not easily estimated.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Lying, Simplicity, Dresses
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1860). “The Conduct of Life”, p.135

Converse with a mind that is grandly simple, and literature looks like word-catching. The simplest utterances are worthiest to bewritten, yet are they so cheap, and so things of course, that, in the infinite riches of the soul, it is like gathering a few pebbles off the ground, or bottling a little air in a phial, when the whole earth and the whole atmosphere are ours.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Simple, Air, Simplicity
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.90, Graphic Arts Books

The reason of idleness and of crime is the deferring of our hopes. Whilst we are waiting, we beguile the time with jokes, with sleep, with eating, and with crimes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sleep, Waiting, Eating
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.540, Рипол Классик

Our moods do not believe in each other.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Believe, Mood, Vacuity
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

We are such lovers of self-reliance, that we excuse in a man many sins, if he will show us a complete satisfaction in his position, which asks no leave to be, of mine, or any man's good opinion.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Confidence, Men, Self
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1469, Delphi Classics

But hospitality must be for service, and not for show, or it pulls down the host. The brave soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it hath, but its own majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks and fair water than belong to city feasts.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cities, Giving, Water
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.76, 谷月社

The rule for hospitality and Irish "help," is, to have the same dinner every day throughout the year. At last, Mrs. O'Shaughnessylearns to cook it to a nicety, the host learns to carve it, and the guests are well served.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Years, Guests, Dinner

Rude poets of the tavern hearth, squandering your unquoted mirth, which keeps the ground, and never soars, while jake retorts, and reuben roars; tough and screaming, as birch-bark, goes like bullet to its mark; while the solid curse and jeer never balk the waiting ear.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Rude, Waiting, Jake
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1847). “Poems”, p.103

If we consider what happens in conversation, in reveries, in remorse, in times of passion, in surprises, in the instructions of dreams, wherein often we see ourselves in masquerade,--the droll disguises only magnifying and enhancing a real element, and forcing it on our distinct notice,--we shall catch many hints that will broaden and lighten into knowledge of the secret of nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dream, Real, Passion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.122

Egotism is a kind of buckram that gives momentary strength and concentration to men, and seems to be much used in Nature for fabrics in which local and spasmodic energy is required.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Giving, Fabric
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.146, Harvard University Press

The public values the invention more than the inventor does. The inventor knows there is much more and better where this came from.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Doe, Invention, Inventor
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.146, Harvard University Press

These arts open great gates of a future, promising to make the world plastic and to lift human life out of its beggary to a god- like ease and power.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Art, Power, Ease
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.518, Harvard University Press

Whilst we want cities as the centres where the best things are found, cities degrade us by magnifying trifles.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cities, Want, Found
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.396

New York is a sucked orange. All conversation is at an end, when we have discharged ourselves of a dozen personalities, domestic or imported, which make up our American existence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
New York, Orange, Personality
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.387

The city is always recruited from the country. The men in cities who are the centres of energy, the driving-wheels of trade, politics or practical arts, and the women of beauty and genius, are the children or grandchildren of farmers, and are spending the energies which their fathers' hardy, silent life accumulated in frosty furrows in poverty, necessity and darkness.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Country, Art, Children
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2452, Delphi Classics

This one fact the world hates; that the soul becomes; for that forever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Jesus, Hate, Past
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.253, Рипол Классик

Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so incidental and at random, that we can seldom hear the acknowledgments of any person who would thank us for a benefit, without some shame and humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct stroke, but must be content with an oblique one; we seldom have the satisfaction of yielding a direct benefit, which is directly received.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Kindness, Evil, Benefits
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.121, Courier Corporation

How shall a man escape from his ancestors, or draw off from his veins the black drop which he drew from his father's or mother's life?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mother, Father, Men
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.320

Every ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in. Embark, and the romance quits our vessel, and hangs on every other sail in the horizon.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Romantic, Envy, Romance
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1993). “Self-reliance, and Other Essays”, p.84, Courier Corporation

Manners are very communicable: men catch them from each other.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Manners
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.405

I could better eat with one who did not respect the truth or the laws, than with a sloven and unpresentable person. Moral qualities rule the world, but at shorter distances, the senses are despotic.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Respect, Distance, Law
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Essays (Annotated Edition)”, p.256, Jazzybee Verlag

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