"Men do what is called a good..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.
More by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.”
“All the facts of nature are nouns of the intellect, and make the grammar of the eternal language. Every word has a double, trebleor centuple use and meaning.”
“You've got to be taught, to hate and fear,You've got to be taught, from year to year,It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear,You've got to be carefully taught.”
More on Life
“The mass of men worry themselves into nameless graves while here and there a great unselfish soul forgets himself into immortality.”
“I hold the value of life is to improve one's condition. Whatever is calculated to advance the condition of the honest, struggling laboring man, so far as my judgment will enable me to judge of a correct thing, I am for that thing.”
“The best things in life are unseen, thats why we close our eyes when we kiss, cry, and dream”
More on Authenticity
“He who is and remains true to himself and to others has the most attractive quality of the greatest talent.”
“You have to have a feeling for where you are. You've got only one life to live and you don't have to live it for six people. Pay attention to it.”
“He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize”