Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson

I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

The earth laughs in flowers.

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

It is not the length of life, but the depth.

Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

Wherever a man comes, there comes revolution. The old is for slaves.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

Greatness is a property for which no man gets credit too soon; it must be possessed long before it is acknowledged.

The man for whom the law exists - the man of forms, the conservative - is a tame man.

A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents.