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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes about Past

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None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Past, Accomplishment, Achievement
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2664, Delphi Classics

Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Motivational, Fear, Past
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.181, Harvard University Press

Be not the slave of your own past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Past, Slave, Plunge
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Lee Grossman (2005). “A Year with Emerson: A Daybook”, p.106, David R. Godine Publisher

It takes a good deal of character to judge a person by his future instead of his past

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Character, Past, Judging

No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Past, Sacred, Facts
Essays Circles (p. 297)

Be not the slave of your own past - plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Past, Diving Deep, Sea

We do what we must, and call it by the best names.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Motivational, Past, Names
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.413

When a man becomes cultivated, he develops a new respect for who he is. This causes him to be ashamed of his past identification of himself and others according to things, i.e. property.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Past, Men, Causes

It does not to dwell on dreams and forget to live, but it is equally foolish to ignore the past – never forget.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dream, Past, Doe

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

That which befits us, embosomed in beauty and wonder as we are, is cheerfulness, and courage, and the endeavor to realize our aspirations. Shall not the heart which has received so much, trust the Power by which it lives? May it not quit other leadings, and listen to the Soul that has guided it so gently, and taught it so much, secure that the future will be worthy of the past?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Heart, Past, Soul
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, p.7, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

All persons are puzzles until at last we find in some word or act the key to the man, to the woman; straightway all their past words and actions lie in light before us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Lying, Past, Men
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.3985, Delphi Classics

We are not free to use today, or to promise tomorrow, because we are already mortgaged to yesterday.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Past, Yesterday, Promise
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.233, University of Georgia Press

Power resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Past, Transition, Moments
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.126, Penguin

The days are made on a loom whereof the warp and woof are past and future time. They are majestically dressed, as if every god brought a thread to the skyey web.

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

The Times are the masquerade of the eternities; trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise; the receptacle in which the Past leaves its history; the quarry out of which the genius of today is building up the Future.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wise, Future, Past
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1175, Delphi Classics

But lest I should mislead any when I have my own head and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter.Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle any thing as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no Past at my back.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Truth, Past, True Or False
Essays Circles (p. 297)

The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must be an university of knowledges.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Future, Past, Men
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.70, Library of America

Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of country and religion,not as painfully accumulated, atom after atom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but as one vast picture, which God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of the soul.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
God, Country, Past
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.60, Harvard University Press

There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had wellnigh thought and said.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Lying, Past, Years
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Essays”, p.10, Xist Publishing

We can see well into the past; we can guess shrewdly into the future, but that which is rolled up and muffled in impenetrable folds is today.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Future, Past, Optimism
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

We cannot overstate our debt to the Past, but the moment has the supreme claim.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Past, Mindfulness, Debt
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.107, Harvard University Press

Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past? The sun shines today also.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Past, Thinking, Dry Bones
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Nature”, p.2, Editora Dracaena

Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Past, Dry Bones, Generations
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.32, Penguin

Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Children, Past, Parent
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.125, Penguin

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