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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 46

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

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Numbers, Quality, Actors
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.204, Library of America

Discontent is want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Character, Self, Want

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the mood of the man, whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so serene that we can relish nature or criticism. The more or less depends on structure or temperament. Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and defective store?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Appreciation, Book, Sunset
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1937). “Essays, First and Second Series”, p.135, Jazzybee Verlag

He only is a well-made man who has a good determination.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Determination, Men, Decision
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.71, Harvard University Press

Men admire the man who can organize their wishes and thoughts in stone and wood and steel and brass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Organization, Wish
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2499, Delphi Classics

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Numbers, Principles, Values
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2781, Delphi Classics

Good poetry could not have been otherwise written than it is. The first time you hear it, it sounds rather as if copied out of some invisible tablet in the Eternal mind than as if arbitrarily composed by the poet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Poetry, Mind, Sound
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.49, Harvard University Press

If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Age, Desire
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.73, Penguin

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wall, Thinking, Consistency
Essays "Self-Reliance" (1841)

The greatest homage to truth is to use it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Truth, Use, Truth Is

The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life, Positive, Happiness
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.422

Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Motivational, Men, Law

It is better to suffer injustice than to do it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Suffering, Injustice
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.349

To give money to a sufferer is only a come-off. It is only a postponement of the real payment, a bribe paid for silence, a creditsystem in which a paper promise to pay answers for the time instead of liquidation. We owe to man higher succors than food and fire. We owe to man.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Real, Men, Fire
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2442, Delphi Classics

I think we must get rid of slavery or we must get rid of freedom.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thinking, Slavery, Slave
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Selected Writings”, p.8, Simon and Schuster

Being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of tranquillity that religion is powerless to bestow.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Drinking, Giving, Feelings

Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thinking, Men, Mind
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.16, Graphic Arts Books

Only poetry inspires poetry.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Poetry, Inspire
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1871). “Society and Solitude and Other Essays”, p.171

Knowledge is the knowing that we cannot know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Honesty, Knowledge, Knowing
"The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson".

Things are in the saddle. And ride mankind.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Transcendentalism, Saddles, Mankind
"Ode Inscribed toW. H. Channing" l. 50 (1847)

He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets — most likely his father's. He gets rest, commodity, and reputation; but he shuts the door of truth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Father, Philosophy, Party
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1400, Delphi Classics

When summer opens, I see how fast it matures, and fear it will be short; but after the heats of July and August, I am reconciled, like one who has had his swing, to the cool of autumn.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Summer, Senior, Autumn
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte (1982). “Emerson in His Journals”, p.354, Harvard University Press

Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Character, Faces, Facts
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Self-Reliance and Other Essays”, p.20, Courier Corporation

Fear, when your friends say to you what you have done well, and say it through; but when they stand with uncertain timid looks of respect and half-dislike, and must suspend their judgement for years to come, you may begin to hope.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Respect, Years, Judgement
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.334, Modern Library

It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Memories, Past, New Day
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.122, Penguin

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