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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 166

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For, rightly, every man is a channel through which heaven floweth, and, whilst I fancied I was criticising him, I was censuring orrather terminating my own soul.

For, rightly, every man is a channel through which heaven floweth, and, whilst I fancied I was criticising him, I was censuring orrather terminating my own soul.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Heaven, Soul
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.172, Graphic Arts Books

A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue. Then he is instructed in what is set above him. He learns that his being is without bound; that to the good, to the perfect, he is born, low as he now lies in evil and weakness.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sweet, Lying, Heart
Address in Divinity College, americanliterature.com. July 15, 1838.

The superstition respecting power and office is going to the ground. The stream of human affairs flows its own way, and is very little affected by the activity of legislators. What great masses of men wish done, will be done; and they do not wish it for a freak, but because it is their state and natural end.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Leadership, Men, Office
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.284, Harvard University Press

When a natural king becomes a titular king, every body is pleased and satisfied.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Leadership, Kings, Body
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Wallace E. Williams, Joseph Slater (1987). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men: seven lectures”, p.372, Harvard University Press

History is full, down to this day, of the imbecility of kings and governors. They are a class of persons much to be pitied, for they know not what they should do.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Leadership, Kings, Class
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1635, Delphi Classics

In every company, there is not only the active and passive sex, but, in both men and women, a deeper and more important sex of mind, namely, the inventive or creative class of both men and women, and the uninventive or accepting class.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Leadership, Sex, Men
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.973, Library of America

Imagination is a very high sort of seeing, which does not come by study, but by the intellect being where and what it sees, by sharing the path, or circuits of things through forms, and so making them translucid to others.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Imagination, Path, Doe
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Self-Reliance and Other Essays”, p.75, Courier Corporation

The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Speak, Poet, Knows
Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.213, Harvard University Press

Not the sun or summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Summer, Yield, Delight
Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.31, Harvard University Press

Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each one a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage, they form at last a rich varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, and its details adorned. If they are superficial, so are the dew-drops which give such a depth to the morning meadows.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Morning, Giving, Lasts
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.90, Harvard University Press

Only so much of life do I know as I have lived.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Knows

We find in life exactly what we put into it

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Inspirational

The religions we call false were once true.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religion, True Religion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2728, Delphi Classics

The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the muse of history will utter oracles as never to those who do not respect themselves.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, History, Oracles
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.104, Penguin

No hope so bright but is the beginning of its own fulfilment.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hope, No Hope, Fulfilment
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph H. Orth, Glen M. Johnson (1994). “The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.287, University of Missouri Press

The street is full of humiliations to the proud.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Humility, Pride, Proud
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays: First and Second Series”, p.294, Library of America

Time is indeed the theater and seat of illusions; nothing is so ductile and elastic. The mind stretches an hour to a century, and dwarfs an age to an hour.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mind, Age, Illusion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.160, Harvard University Press

When the boys come into my yard for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, I own I enter into nature's game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, fearing that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy chaff. But this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid on very thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to tears is the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the less they hang it round with frippery romance, like the children of the happiest fortune.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Horse, Children, Boys
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2389, Delphi Classics

Our impatience of miles, when we are in a hurry; but it is still best that a mile should have seventeen hundred and sixty yards.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Should Have, Yards, Impatience
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.235, Penguin

The beautiful laws of time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude, are holes and dens. If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, instead of honey, it will yield us bees.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Beautiful, Stupid, Hands
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.218, Modern Library

An actually existing fly is more important than a possibly existing angel.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Angel, Important, Importance

It seems as if the day was not wholly profane in which we have given heed to some natural object.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Improvement, Natural, Given
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt McLaughlin (2010). “The Laws of Nature: Excerpts from the Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.53, North Atlantic Books

An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man; as, monachism of the Hermit Anthony, the Reformation of Luther, Quakerism of Fox, Methodism of Wesley, abolition of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton called "the height of Rome;" and all history resolves itself easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons. Let a man, then, know his worth, and keep things under his feet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Rome, Feet

Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Greatness, Men, Unique
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.39

Genius is intellect constructive.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Genius, Intellect, Constructive

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