Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
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But 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.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
One lesson we learn early, that in spite of seeming difference, men are all of one pattern. We readily assume this with our mates, and are disappointed and angry if we find that we are premature, and that their watches are slower than ours. In fact, the only sin which we never forgive in each other is difference of opinion.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. -- ` Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood .' -- Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-men can do little for him.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
There never was a child so lovely, but his mother was glad to get him asleep.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
That which we call character is a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is conceived of as a certain undemonstrable force, a familiar or genius, by whose impulses the man is guided, but whose counsels he cannot impart.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic. There is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune in making money. Men talk as if there were some magic about this. He knows that all goes on the old road, pound for pound, cent for cent -- for every effect a perfect cause -- and that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being: Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose! I never sought to ask, I never knew: But, in my simple ignorance suppose The selfsame power that brought me there brought you.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
Beauty is the mark God sets on virtue. Every natural action is graceful; every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine. Art
By Ralph Waldo Emerson