Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, -- he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me

A man is a god in ruins.

In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven

The secret of poetry is never explained - is always new. We have not got farther than mere wonder at the delicacy of the touch, & the eternity it inherits. In every house a child that in mere play utters oracles, & knows not that they are such. 'Tis as easy as breath. 'Tis like this gravity, which holds the Universe together, & none knows what it is.

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

Use language what you will, you can never say anything but what you are.

War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man.

An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man

All the mistakes I make arise from forsaking my own station and trying to see the object from another person's point of view.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide. Him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him because he did not need it.

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

A man is what he thinks about all day long

The highest revelation is that God is in every man.

Prayer that craves a particular commodity—anything less than all good, is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg.

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.

When a man is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something.

We are immensed in beauty, but our eyes have no clear vision.

Do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.

Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology.

Our best thoughts come from others.

The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul

One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.