The Best Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes: 317 Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes to Discover His Wisdom and to Transform Your Perspective in Life

“Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Throw a stone into the stream and the ripples that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Life is an ecstasy. Life is sweet as nitrous oxide.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“For nonconformity the world will whip you with its displeasure.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Plant your dreams and miracles will grow.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“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

“Self reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Live well, learn plenty, laugh often, love much.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed. When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work but the solidest things we know.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“We walk alone in the world. Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The years teach much the days never know.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essayist, Lecturer, Philosopher, Writer, and Poet

“Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Each of us sees in others what we carry in our own hearts.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Truth, and goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same All.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Self-trust is the first secret of success, the belief that if you are here the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause, or with some tasks strictly appointed you in your constitution, and so long as you work at that you are well and successful.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“The primary wisdom is intuition.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.” — 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

“Standing on the bare ground, – my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, – all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Some books leave us free and some books make us free.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The primary wisdom is intuition. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their origin.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“What is the hardest task in the world? To think.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Why should the way I feel depend on the thoughts in someone else’s head?” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Money is of no value; it cannot spend itself. All depends on the skill of the spender.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Living without Laughing isn’t living. Be silly. Be honest. Be Kind.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We learn geology the morning after the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, upheaved plains, and the dry bed of the sea.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Commerce is a game of skill which everyone cannot play and few can play well.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When a man is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Life must be lived on a higher plane. We must go up to a higher platform, to which we are always invited to ascend; there, the whole aspect of things changes.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The library is the worst group of people ever assembled in history. They’re mean, conniving, rude, and extremely well-read, which makes them dangerous.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It is about your outlook towards life. You can either regret or rejoice.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Freedom is not the right to live as we please, but the right to find how we ought to live in order to fulfill our potential.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When I read a good book, I wish my life were three thousand years long.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A friend is the hope of the heart.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Moderation in all things, especially moderation.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“All successful men have agreed in one thing – they were causationists. They believed that things went not by luck, but by law; that there was not a weak or a cracked link in the chain that joins the first and last of things.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: it was somebody’s name, or he happened to be there at right time, or it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as two sides of an algebraic equation.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“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

“Coffee is good for talent, but genius wants prayer.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Men are what their mothers made them.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The ocean is a large drop; a drop is a small ocean.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The sky is the ultimate art gallery just above us.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There is creative reading as well as creative writing.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Don’t ever give up on something or someone that you can’t go a full day without thinking about.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little, you gain the great.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The highest revelation is that God is in every man.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The roses under my window make no reference to former roses or better ones; they are what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Cultivate an attitude of gratitude, of giving and forgiving. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The only sin that we never forgive in each other is a difference in opinion.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Be not the slave of your own past.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Common sense is as rare as genius.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Astronomy taught us our insignificance in Nature.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Freedom has nothing to do with having the right to vote for your oppressor; freedom is not having any form of oppression.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Trust instinct to the end, even though you can give no reason.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward; in talent from without inward.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“True friends are two people who are comfortable sharing silence together.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby – so helpless and so ridiculous.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. The mind does not create what it perceives, anymore than the eye creates the rose.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Real men don’t conform to the beliefs of others, even when society has concluded on what is good and true, but maintain the integrity of their own mind.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“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

“The best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere people.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Patience and fortitude conquer all things.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“That which dominates our imagination and our thoughts will determine our life and character.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Perception is a mirror not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I didn’t find my friends; the good Lord gave them to me.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Don’t waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The only thing that can grow is the thing you give energy to.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Luck is just another word for tenacity of purpose.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you know you are right, stay the course even though the whole world seems to be against you and everyone you know questions your judgment. When you prevail – and you eventually will if you stick to the job – they will all tell you that they knew all along you could do it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Knowledge is when you learn something new every day. Wisdom is when you let something go every day.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men that is genius.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A house is made with walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, your’re the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“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.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means to an education.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The first wealth is health.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Fear always springs from ignorance.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We are always getting ready to live but never living.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It’s the not the destination, it’s the journey.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to leave the world a better place, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You become what you think about all day long.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The Soul rules over matter. Matter may pass away like a mote in the sunbeam, may be absorbed into the immensity of God, as a mistis absorbed into the heat of the Sun – but the soul is the kingdom of God, the abode of love, of truth, of virtue.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Self-trust is the first secret of success.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We are like travellers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs. Whilst we see that it always stands ready to clothe what we would say, we cannot avoid the question whether the characters are not significant of themselves.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Some thoughts always find us young, and keep us so. Such a thought is the love of the universal and eternal beauty.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Give all to love: Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good fame, Plans, credit, and the Muse,- Nothing refuse.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over influence. The literature of every nation bear me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakspearized now for two hundred years.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterward return again.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“All great men come out of the middle classes.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“All natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Thought is the seed of action; but action is as much its second form as thought is its first. It rises in thought, to the end that it may be uttered and acted. Always in proportion to the depth of its sense does it knock importunately at the gates of the soul, to be spoken, to be done.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Every materialist will be an idealist; but an idealist can never go backward to be a materialist.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The philosophy of waiting is sustained by all the oracles of the universe.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated. No secret can be kept in the civilized world. Society is a masked ball where everyone hides his real character, then reveals it by hiding.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations. The only sin is limitation. As soon as you once come up with a man’s limitations, it is all over with him.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Whoever fights, whoever falls, Justice conquers evermore.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If we walk in the woods, we must feed mosquitoes.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Greatness is a property for which no man can receive credit too soon; it must be possessed long before it is acknowledged.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson