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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 85

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Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is with-held, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.

Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is with-held, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Debt, Usage, Payment
RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1911). “THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR SELF-RELIANCE COMPENSATION”

Therefore is nature ever the ally of Religion: lends her all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment.

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

Each religious sect has its own physiognomy. The Methodists have acquired a face; the Quakers, a face; the nuns, a face. An Englishman will pick out a dissenter by his manners.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religious, Religion, Faces
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.21

Good churches are not built by bad men; at least, there must be probity and enthusiasm somewhere in the society. These minsters were neither built nor filled by atheists.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Atheist, Men, Religion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2204, Delphi Classics

Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my brother, because he has shut his own temple doors and recites fables merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
God, Brother, Doors
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.34, Coyote Canyon Press

Life is comic or pitiful as soon as the high ends of being fade out of sight, and man becomes near-sighted, and can only attend towhat addresses the senses.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Sight, Religion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.194

Europe has always owed to oriental genius its divine impulses. What these holy bards said, all sane men found agreeable and true.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Europe, Religion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.510

The moment the doctrine of the immortality is separately taught, man is already fallen. In the flowing of love, in the adoration of humility, there is no question of continuance. No inspired man ever asks this question, or condescends to these evidences. For the soul is true to itself, and the man in whom it is shed abroad cannot wander from the present, which is infinite, to a future which would be finite.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Humility, Men, Soul
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.303, Modern Library

Our religion vulgarly stands on numbers of believers. Whenever the appeal is made--no matter how indirectly--to numbers, proclamation is then and there made, that religion is not. He that finds God a sweet, enveloping presence, who shall dare to come in?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
God, Sweet, Numbers
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.174, Penguin

To me, however, the question of the times resolved itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live? We are incompetent to solve the times. Our geometry cannot span the huge orbits of the prevailing ideas, behold their return, and reconcile their opposition. We can only obey our own polarity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life, Ideas, Orbit
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1860). “The Conduct of Life”, p.1

Man is the broken giant, and in all his weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation with nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature, Men, Broken
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.113, Penguin

Genius detects through the fly, through the caterpillar, through the grub, through the egg, the constant individual; through countless individuals the fixed species; through many species the genus; through all genera the steadfast type; through all the kingdoms of organized life the eternal unity. Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature, Eggs, Clouds
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.106, Penguin

But genius is religious. It is a larger imbibing of the common heart.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religious, Heart, Imbibing
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “Essays: Easyread Super Large 24pt Edition”, p.477, ReadHowYouWant.com

No rent-roll nor army-list can dignify skulking and dissimulation: and the first point of courtesy must always be truth, as really all the forms of good-breeding point that way.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Army, Way, Firsts
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.432, Modern Library

When its errands are noble and adequate, a steamboat bridging the Atlantic between Old and New England, and arriving at its ports with the punctuality of a planet, is a step of man into harmony with nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Arriving, Noble
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.165

But the nomads were the terror of all those whom the soil or the advantages of the market had induced to build towns. Agriculture therefore was a religious injunction, because of the perils of the state from nomadism.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religious, Agriculture, Soil
Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.149, Harvard University Press

The nonconformist and the rebel say all manner of unanswerable things against the existing republic, but discover to our sense no plan of house or state of their own.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
House, Rebel, Republic
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.97, Harvard University Press

If you visit your friend, why need you apologize for not having visited him, and waste his time and deface your own act? Visit him now.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Needs, Waste, Apologizing
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.160, Penguin

The way to learn German, is, to read the same dozen pages over and over a hundred times, till you know every word and particle in them, and can pronounce and repeat them by heart.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Heart, Dozen, Pages
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.41, Harvard University Press

Sentimentalists ... adopt whatever merit is in good repute, and almost make it hateful with their praise. The warmer their expressions, the colder we feel.... Cure the drunkard, heal the insane, mollify the homicide, civilize the Pawnee, but what lessons can be devised for the debauchee of sentiment?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Expression, Insane, Lessons
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.57, Harvard University Press

But in our experience, man is cheap and friendship wants its deep sense. We affect to dwell with our friends in their absence, but we do not; when deed, word, or letter comes not, they let us go.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Deeds, Letters
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.95, Penguin

Infancy is the perpetual Messiah, which comes into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with them to return to paradise.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Infancy Is, Paradise
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.46, Library of America

Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere

Ralph Waldo Emerson
God, Nature, Glory

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wise, Struggle, Wish
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1979). “Emerson's Literary Criticism”, p.112, U of Nebraska Press

Must we always talk for victory, and never once for truth, for comfort, and joy?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Comfort And Joy, Joy, Victory
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.53, Harvard University Press

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