Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

I would put myself in the attitude to look in the eye an abstract truth, and I cannot. I blench and withdraw on this side and on that. I seem to know what he meant who said, No man can see God face to face and live.

Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick or aged. In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused, when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.

Whilst we behold unveiled the nature of Justice and Truth, we learn the difference between the absolute and the conditional or relative. We apprehend the absolute. As it were, for the first time, we exist. We become immortal, for we learn that time and space are relations of matter; that, with a perception of truth, or a virtuous will, they have no affinity.

Nu merge pe drumul b?t?torit. În schimb, mergi pe acolo pe unde nu s-a mai c?lcat È™i las? o urm?.

fundamental law of criticism. A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and of virtue, will purge the eyes to understand her text. By degrees we may come to know the primitive sense of the permanent objects of nature, so that the world shall be to us an open book, and every form significant of its hidden life and final cause. A new interest surprises us, whilst, under the

w]e are optimists when the sun shines

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations. Nature

There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. [...] Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.

same spirit which gave it forth,—is the fundamental law of criticism. A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and of virtue, will purge the eyes to understand her text. By degrees

The antidote to this abuse of formal government, is, the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual.

The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character.

If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods.

The one thing in the world of value is the active soul,—the soul, free, sovereign, active. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although in almost all men obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth and utters truth, or creates. In this action it is genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man.

Y se expresaron con sus propias palabras, no con las palabras de los demás hombres

The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss.

The only way to have a friend is to be one

For the world is not painted, or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe.

The condition of true naming, on the poet's part, is his resigning himself to the divine aura which breathes through forms, and accompanying that.

wish to love Jesus as a glorified friend, in the free spirit of friendship—not pay him a stiff sign of respect, as people do before someone they fear. How do I think we should commemorate Jesus' life? By reading his words, imitating his kindness and generosity, and doing anything that awakens our minds and opens our hearts to virtue and love.

Dreams and beasts are two keys by which we find out the secret of our own nature. They are test objects.

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it.

The universal soul is the alone creator of the useful and the beautiful; therefore to make anything useful or beautiful, the individual must be submitted to the universal mind.

Character The sun set, but set not his hope: Stars rose; his faith was earlier up: Fixed on the enormous galaxy, Deeper and older seemed his eye; And matched his sufferance sublime The taciturnity of time. He spoke, and words more soft than rain Brought the Age of Gold again: His action won such reverence sweet As hid all measure of the feat.

Nature loves analogies, but not repetitions.