Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.
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| To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. - Ralph Waldo Emerson |
Here is A selection of some of Ralph Waldo Emerson most famous quotes: Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Success, Self-reliance, Travel, Love, Nature and Society.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes and Sayings
What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Make the most of yourself... for that is all there is of you.
Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.
Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered you will never grow.
Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.
Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.
Always do what you are afraid to do.
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
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.
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.
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.
Envy is ignorance, Imitation is Suicide.
That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.
The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
You become what you think about all day long.
Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.
Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
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.
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.
You are constantly invited to be what you are.
Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.
Life is a series of surprises and would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not.
None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.
Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.
God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.
To get up each morning with the resolve to be happy is to set your own conditions to the events of each day. To do this is to condition circumstances instead of being conditioned by them.
Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.
It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him.
When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, you're the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.
Success comes from within, not from without.
Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success.
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.
Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
What is success? To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate the beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
A great man is always willing to be little.
Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.
We acquire the strength we have overcome.
Be not the slave of your own past - plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.
I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.
A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.
Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.
There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
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.
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.
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.
Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.
I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives.
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
The earth laughs in flowers.
Every wall is a door.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
It is not the length of life, but the depth.
Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.
We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation -rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.
The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.
Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.
The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry.
Every artist was first an amateur.
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
My life is not an apology, but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady.
The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.
Life is a journey, not a destination.
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.
The First Wealth Is Health.
To be great is to be misunderstood.
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting.
Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.
It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself.
Trust instinct to the end, even though you can give no reason.
There is creative reading as well as creative writing.
Some books leave us free and some books make us free.
The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.
The wise man in the storm prays God not for safety from danger but for deliverance from fear.
Nothing external to you has any power over you.
Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.
The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.
Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it.
Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.
Imitation is suicide.
Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
Beware what you set your heart upon. For it surely shall be yours.
This is my wish for you: Comfort on difficult days, smiles when sadness intrudes, rainbows to follow the clouds, laughter to kiss your lips, sunsets to warm your heart, hugs when spirits sag, beauty for your eyes to see, friendships to brighten your being, faith so that you can believe, confidence for when you doubt, courage to know yourself, patience to accept the truth, Love to complete your life.
In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.
The Artist always has the masters in his eyes.
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.
I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.
I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
Do not seek for things outside of yourself.
Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.
Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them.
I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.
We are always getting ready to live, but never living.
Let us be silent, that we may hear the whisper of God.
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
Love, and you shall be loved.
People only see what they are prepared to see.
Fear always springs from ignorance.
What I need is someone who will make me do what I can.
Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.
Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue.
Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn.
For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.
Beauty without expression is boring.
Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy.
The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil. It is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he shall do. It is chosen and foreordained and he only holds the key to his own secret.
All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.
The years teach much the days never know.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
Whatever course you decide upon there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires... courage.
Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know.
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.
The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.
In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes.
Be good to your work, your word, and your friend.
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.
Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed. When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work but the solidest things we know.
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.
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