Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes about Honesty

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Motivational, Truth, Honesty

Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.165, Harvard University Press

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Inspirational, Truth, Honesty

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.1122, Library of America

Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Suicide, Truth, Honesty

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.318, Harvard University Press

Work and thou canst escape the reward; whether the work be fine or course, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Honesty, Work, Writing

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.565, Рипол Классик

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beautiful, Truth, Honesty

Every man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well. He has changed his market cart into a chariot of the sun.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Honesty, Men, Doe

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.430

Knowledge is the knowing that we cannot know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Honesty, Knowledge, Knowing

"The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson".

Every great institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man. His character determines the character of the organization.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Teamwork, Honesty, Integrity

If men would avoid that general language and general manner in which they strive to hide all that is peculiar, and would say only what was uppermost in their own minds, after their own individual manner, every man would be interesting.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Truth, Honesty, Men

Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.39, Courier Corporation

A man is not to aim at innocence, any more than he is to aim at hair, but he is to keep it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Truth, Honesty, Men

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1977). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1852-1855”, p.444, Harvard University Press

There is ever a slight suspicion of the burlesque about earnest good men.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Truth, Honesty, Men

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

Nature forever puts a premium on reality. What is done for effect is seen to be done for effect; what is done for love is felt to be done for love. A man inspires affection and honor because he was not lying in wait for these.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Truth, Honesty, Lying

Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2334, Delphi Classics

When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has base ends, and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy, and sometimes asquint.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Honesty, Eye, Men

Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.51, Penguin

Congratulate yourself if you have done something strange, extravagant and broken the monotony.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Inspirational, Motivational, Honesty

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

You must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Running, Honesty, Men

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.128, Harvard University Press

Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow. Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. The louder he talked of his honesty, the quicker we counted the silverware.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Strong, Honesty, Real

Deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Honesty, Gambling, Lasts

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.1122, Library of America

Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Honesty, Men, May

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1841-1843”, p.37, Harvard University Press

The solar system has no anxiety about its reputation, and the credit of truth and honesty is as safe; nor have I any fear that a skeptical bias can be given by leaning hard on the sides of fate, of practical power, or of trade, which the doctrine of Faith cannot down-weigh.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Faith, Truth, Honesty

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.107, Harvard University Press

But to most of us society shows not its face and eye, but its side and back. To stand in true relations with men in a false age isworth a fit of insanity, is it not?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Honesty, Eye, Men

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.94

Frankness invites frankness.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trust, Truth, Honesty

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1857). “Essays: First Series”, p.215

Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie-for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance-will instantly vitiate the effect.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wall, Honesty, Lying

Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.111, Coyote Canyon Press

The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Time, Laughter, Honesty

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1875). “Letters and Social Aims”, p.127

We commonly say that the rich man can speak the truth, can afford honesty, can afford independence of opinion and action;--and that is the theory of nobility. But it is the rich man in a true sense, that is to say, not the man of large income and large expenditure, but solely the man whose outlay is less than his income and is steadily kept so.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Honesty, Men, Independence

Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.675, Modern Library