Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self-command is the main elegance.

Knowledge is the only elegance.

Knowledge exists to be imparted.

Knowledge is the antidote to fear. [especially as fear often stands for false evidence appearing real!]

We know more from nature than we can at will communicate.

All I know is reception; I am and I have: but I do not get, and when I fancied I had gotten anything, I found I did not.

There is no doctrine of the Reason which will bear to be taught by the Understanding.

Chiefly the sea-shore has been the point of departure to knowledge, as to commerce. The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.

If you want to be great and successful, choose people who are great and successful and walk side by side with them.

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

Vivacity, leadership, must be had, and we are not allowed to be nice in choosing. We must fetch the pump with dirty water, if clean cannot be had.

Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time.

When a natural king becomes a titular king, every body is pleased and satisfied.

If you shoot at a king you must kill him.

Let the bird sing without deciphering the song.

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.

I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.

We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.

Life Is a Journey, Not a Destination.

The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.

The years in your life are less important than the life in your years.