Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every sweet hath its sour, every evil its good.

Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe?

The present is an edifice which God cannot rebuild.

We can see well into the past; we can guess shrewdly in to the future; but that which is rolled up and muffled in impenetrable folds is today.

Live wastes itself while we are preparing to live.

Make yourself necessary to somebody.

O Lord! Unhappy is the man whom man can make unhappy.

The only reward of virtue is virtue.

When there is no vision, people perish.

Sleep takes off the costume of circumstance, arms us with terrible freedom, so that every will rushes to deed. A skillful man reads his dreams for his self-knowledge; yet not the details, but the quality. What part does he play in them - a cheerful, manly part, or a poor, drivelling part? However monstrous and grotesque their apparitions, they have a substantial truth.

A wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interests than it is theirs to find his weak point.

Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home; Thou are not my friend; I am not thine.

What torments of grief you endured, from evils that never arrived.

Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured From the evil which never arrived.

And what greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship.

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.

There is no such thing as concealment. Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.

Cause and effect are two sides of one fact.

Strong men greet war, tempest, hard times. They wish, as Pindar said, to tread the floors of hell, with necessities as hard as iron.

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.

He, who loves the bristle of bayonets, only sees in their glitter what beforehand he feels in his hand.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood Their flag to April's breeze unfurl'd Here once the embattl'd farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world.

Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.