Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

A good intention clothes itself with power.

You cannot see the mountain near.

There is a kind of latent omniscience not only in every man, but in every particle. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

It is very hard to be simple enough to be good.

There is no calamity that right words will not begin to redress.

For every minute you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness. Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

So of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is spent, the more it remains.

Men lose their tempers in defending their taste.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.

Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action. What they have done commits and enforces them to do the same again. The first act, which was to be an experiment, becomes a sacrament.

In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking.

All promise outruns performance.

I know of no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that of tenacity of purpose...

Go cherish your soul; express companions; set your habits to a life of solitude; then will the faculties rise fair and full within.

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

The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.

The judge weighs the arguments and puts a brave face on the matter, and since there must be a decision, decides as he can, and hopes he has done justice and given satisfaction to the community.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in our private heart is for all men - that is genius.

We do not live an equal life, but one of contrasts and patchwork; now a little joy, then a sorrow, now a sin, then a generous or brave actioî

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears apples.

To be simple is to be great

The greatest man in history was the poorest

For the world was built in order Around the atoms march in tune; Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder, The sun obeys them, and the moon.