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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes about Humility

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Our best thoughts come from others.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Humility

Humility is the secret of the wise.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wise, Humility, Secret

Character is that which can do without success.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Success, Character, Humility

Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.

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

The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Humility, Greatness, Essence
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.76, 谷月社

Give the slave the least elevation of religious sentiment, and he is not slave: you are the slave: he not only in his humility feels his superiority, feels that much deplored condition of his to be a fading trifle, but he makes you feel it too. He is the master.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religious, Humility, Giving
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.258

Practice radical humility." He (or she)who masters the art of humility cannot be humiliated.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Art, Humility, Practice

Of course you will insist on modesty in the children, and respect to their teachers, but if the boy stops you in your speech, cries out that you are wrong and sets you right, hug him!

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Teacher, Children, Humility
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2751, Delphi Classics

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

But the best read naturalist who lends an entire and devout attention to truth, will see that there remains much to learn of his relation to the world, and that it is not to be learned by any addition or subtraction or other comparison of known quantities, but is arrived at by untaught sallies of the spirit, by a continual self-recovery, and by entire humility.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Knowledge, Humility, Recovery
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2017). “The Best Read Naturalist": Nature Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.130, University of Virginia Press

I fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all points to the real and wholesome success. One adores public opinion, the other, private opinion; one, fame, the other, desert; one, feats, the other, humility; one, lucre, the other, love; one, monopoly, and the other, hospitality of mind.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Success, Real, Humility
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.246, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

The aspect of nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands folded upon the breast. The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Jesus, Nature, Humility
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1844). “Nature: An Essay ; And, Lectures on the Times”, p.53

A man in the view of absolute goodness, adores, with total humility. Every step downward, is a step upward. The man who renounceshimself, comes to himself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Humility, Men, Self
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2001). “Nature, Addresses and Lectures”, p.122, The Minerva Group, Inc.

Men of extraordinary success, in their honest moments, have always sung, "Not unto us, not unto us." According to the faith of their times, they have built altars to Fortune, or to Destiny, or to St. Julian. Their success lay in their parallelism to the course of thought, which found in them an unobstructed channel; and the wonders of which they were the visible conductors seemed to their eye their deed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Success, Humility, Eye
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.42, Penguin

Heaven always bears some proportion to earth. The god of the cannibal will be a cannibal, of the crusades a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Humility, Heaven, Bears
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume II”, p.425

Extremes meet, and there is no better example than the naughtiness of humility.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Humility, Pride, Example

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

Let the realist not mind appearances. Let him delegate to others the costly courtesies and decorations of social life. The virtuesare economists, but some of the vices are also. Thus, next to humility, I have noticed that pride is a pretty good husband. A good pride is, as I reckon it, worth from five hundred to fifteen hundred a year.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Husband, Humility, Pride
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.61, Harvard University Press

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