Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes about Children

Successful is the person who has lived well, laughed often and loved much, who has gained the respect of children, who leaves the world better than they found it, who has never lacked appreciation for the earth's

Successful is the person who has lived well, laughed often and loved much, who has gained the respect of children, who leaves the world better than they found it, who has never lacked appreciation for the earth's beauty, who never fails to look for the best in others or give the best of themselves.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Appreciation, Children, Successful

A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Children, Essentials, Routine

Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Education, Children, Parenting

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

Sorrow makes us all children again.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Children, Grief, Condolences

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte (1982). “Emerson in His Journals”, p.277, Harvard University Press

Sorrow makes us all children again - destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sad, Children, Condolences

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte (1982). “Emerson in His Journals”, p.277, Harvard University Press

Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some historical person, and predict the sequel of his character and fortune, a result which he is sure to disappoint. None will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice, but only in his high unprecedented way.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leadership, Children, Character

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.505, Library of America

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Children, Heart, Grandparent

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.276, Penguin

Respect the child. Wait and see the new product of Nature. Nature loves analogies, but not repetitions. Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Respect, Nature, Children

Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2745, Delphi Classics

We sometimes observe that spoiled children contract a habit of annoying quite wantonly those who have charge of them, and seem tomeasure their own sense of well-being, not by what they do, but by the degree of reaction they can cause. It is vain to get rid of them by not minding them: if purring and humming is not noticed, they squeal and screech; then if you chide and console them, they find the experiment succeeds, and they begin again. The child will sit in your arms contented if you do nothing. If you take a book and read, he commences hostile operations.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Children, Book, Arms

Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2955, Delphi Classics

Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Uplifting, Memorial Day, Children

Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.521, Harvard University Press

We fill the hands and nurseries of our children with all manner of dolls, drums and horses, withdrawing their eyes from the plain face and... Nature, the sun and moon, the animals, the water and stones, which should be their toys.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Horse, Children, Eye

Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Self-Reliance and Other Essays”, p.76, Courier Corporation

Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Funny, Baby, Children

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.260, Library of America

Men are not philosophers, but are rather very foolish children, who, by reason of their partiality, see everything in the most absurd manner, and are the victims at all times of the nearest object. There is even no philosopher who is a philosopher at all times. Our experience, our perception is conditioned by the need to acquire in parts and in succession, that is, with every truth a certain falsehood.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Children, Philosophy, Knowledge

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.164, Рипол Классик

Nature does not cocker us: we are children, not pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature, Fear, Children

Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.96, 谷月社

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, - "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, 'They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil's child, I will live then from the devil.'

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Children, Church, Devil

Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.43, 谷月社

Cannot we let [children] be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make another you. One's enough.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Children, Father, Enjoy Life

We all wish to be of importance in one way or another. The child coughs with might and main, since it has no other claim on the company.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Children, Wish, Might

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1969). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VII: 1838-1842”, p.171, Harvard University Press

What art can paint or gild any object in after life with the glow which nature gives to the first baubles of childhood? St. Peter's cannot have the magical power over us that the red and gold covers of our first picture-book possessed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Art, Children, Book

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.53, Harvard University Press

Man begins life helpless. The babe is in paroxysms of fear the moment its nurse leaves it alone, and it comes so slowly to any power of self-protection that mothers say the salvation of the life and health of a young child is a perpetual miracle.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mother, Fear, Children

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.129, Harvard University Press

England, an old and exhausted island, must one day be contented, like other parents, to be strong only in her children.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Strong, Children, Islands

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: English traits”, p.155, Harvard University Press

We are the children of many sires, and every drop of blood in us in its turn betrays its ancestor.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Children, Blood, Genealogy

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.240, Harvard University Press

It is said that when manners are licentious, a revolution is always near: the virtue of woman being the main girth and bandage ofsociety; because a man will not lay up an estate for children any longer than whilst he believes them to be his own.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sex, Children, Believe

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte (1982). “Emerson in His Journals”, p.373, Harvard University Press

You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him. You send him to the Latin class, but much of histuition comes, on his way to school, from the shop- windows.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Education, Children, Latin

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.75, Harvard University Press

Why should all virtue work in one and the same way? Why should all give dollars? It is very inconvenient to us country folk, and we do not think any good will come of it. We have not dollars; merchants have; let them give them. Farmers will give corn; poets will sing; women will sew; laborers will lend a hand; the children will bring flowers.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Country, Children, Flower

Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.43, Penguin

Is it not manifest that our academic institutions should have a wider scope; that they should not be timid and keep the ruts of the last generation, but that wise men thinking for themselves and heartily seeking the good of mankind, and counting the cost of innovation, should dare to arouse the young to a just and heroic life; that the moral nature should be addressed in the school-room, and children should be treated as the high-born candidates of truth and virtue?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Education, Wise, Children

Ralph Waldo Emerson (2005). “The Selected Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.51, University of Georgia Press