Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have heard that whoever loves is in no condition old.

'Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time

All promise outruns performance.

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

The great poet makes us feel our own wealth, and then we think less of his compositions. His best communication to our mind is to teach us to despise all he has done.

A great man is always willing to be little.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

The soul contains the event that shall befall it for the event is only the actualization of its thoughts and what we pray to ourselves for is always granted.

What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.

Valor consists in the power of self recovery.

Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other.

The charm of the best courages is that they are inventions, inspirations, flashes of genius.

To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs.

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.

Courage consists of the power of self-recovery.

Every man has his own courage and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

Whatever you do you need courage. ... To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs.

Do not be too timid and squeamish. ... All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue.

I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future pluses. Katherine Mansfield I didn't find my friends; the good Lord gave them to me.

A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can.

Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.

Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. Friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command.

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere