Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

“There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says anywhere but here.”

“The orator is thereby an orator that keeps his feet ever on a fact.”

“Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, Of thee, from the hill-top looking down; And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm, Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; The sexton tolling the bell at noon, Dreams not that great Napoleon Sto”

“The machine unmakes the man. Now that the machine is so perfect, the engineer is nobody.”

“Let a stoic open the resources of man, and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear.”

“If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains,--if onlythat the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.”

“The desire of gold is not for gold. It is not the love of much wheat, and wool and household stuff. It is the means of freedom and benefit.”

“Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Elegance comes of no breeding, but of birth.”

“The persons who constitute the natural aristocracy, are not found in the actual aristocracy, or, only on its edge; as the chemicalenergy of the spectrum is found to be greatest just outside of the spectrum.”

“Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions.”

“The learned and the studious of thought have no monopoly of wisdom. Their violence of direction in some degree disqualifies them to think truly.”

“A system-grinder hates the truth.”

“Manners have been somewhat cynically defined to be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a distance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions. Society is very swift in its instincts, and if you do not belong to it, resists and sneers at you, or quietly drops you.”

“Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none.”

“If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument”

“Beware of what you want-for you will get it.”

“If we tire of the saints, Shakspeare is our city of refuge.”

“It is commonly observed that a sudden wealth, like a prize drawn in a lottery or a large bequest to a poor family, does not permanently enrich. They have served no apprenticeship to wealth, and with the rapid wealth come rapid claims which they do not know how to deny, and the treasure is quickly dissipated.”

“Between cultivated minds the first interview is the best.”

“Let us leave hurry to slaves.”

“I pray my companion, if he wishes for bread, to ask me for bread, and if he wishes for sassafras or arsenic, to ask me for them, and not to hold out his plate, as if I knew already.”

“A mind does not receive truth as a chest receives jewels that are put into it, but as the stomach takes up food into the system. It is no longer food, but flesh, and is assimilated. The appetite and the power of digestion measure our right to knowledge. He has it who can use it. As soon as our accumulation overruns our invention or power to use, the evils of intellectual gluttony begin,— congestion of the brain, apoplexy and strangulation.”

“The pest of society is egotists.”

“Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.”

“Eyes...They speak all languages.”