Ralph Waldo Emerson

• "All diseases run into one, old age.“
• "The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.“
• "Each age, it is found, must write its own books or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.“
• "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.“
• "Every artist was first an amateur.“
• "In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.“
• "Pictures must not be too picturesque.“
• "Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.“
• "Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.“
• "Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.“
• "Beauty without expression is boring.“
• "Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.“
• "We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.“
• "Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.“
• "As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.“
• "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.“
• "The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.“
• "A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.“
• "The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.“
• "Our best thoughts come from others.“
• "The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.“
• "No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.“
• "Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.“
• "A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.“
• "Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.“
• "Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.“
• "Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.“
• "Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.“
• "A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.“
• "The years teach much which the days never know.“
• "God enters by a private door into every individual.“
• "Our faith comes in moments our vice is habitual.“
• "The faith that stands on authority is not faith.“
• "He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.“
• "Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.“
• "Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.“
• "The first wealth is health.“
• "The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.“
• "The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.“
• "It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.“
• "The only way to have a friend is to be one.“
• "A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.“
• "A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.“
• "Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.“
• "With the past, I have nothing to do nor with the future. I live now.“
• "What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.“
• "God enters by a private door into every individual.“
• "A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.“
• "The highest revelation is that God is in every man.“
• "We see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature.“
• "God screens us evermore from premature ideas.“
• "There is no chance and anarchy in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.“
• "Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.“
• "A good indignation brings out all one's powers.“
• "This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.“
• "Doing well is the result of doing good. That's what capitalism is all about.“
• "I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.“
• "Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.“
• "Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.“
• "Good men must not obey the laws too well.“
• "It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.“
• "Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.“
• "Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.“
• "A great man is always willing to be little.“
• "Trust men and they will be true to you treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.“
• "A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.“
• "Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.“
• "Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.“
• "Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force - that thoughts rule the world.“
• "To be great is to be misunderstood.“
• "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.“
• "Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.“
• "People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never.“
• "Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.“
• "No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.“
• "Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.“
• "The search after the great men is the dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of manhood.“
• "Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, but symmetrical men never.“
• "We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.“
• "The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.“
• "The first wealth is health.“
• "Science does not know its debt to imagination.“
• "Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.“
• "Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.“
• "Genius always finds itself a century too early.“
• "Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.“
• "He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.“
• "No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.“
• "All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.“
• "It is not length of life, but depth of life.“
• "With the past, I have nothing to do nor with the future. I live now.“
• "Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.“
• "To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.“
• "A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.“
• "It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.“
• "He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.“
• "Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.“
• "A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.“
• "As soon as there is life there is danger.“
• "People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.“
• "All mankind love a lover.“
• "Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.“
• "Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.“
• "Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.“
• "I have no hostility to nature, but a child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons.“
• "Men are what their mothers made them.“
• "Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.“
• "Trust men and they will be true to you treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.“
• "Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force - that thoughts rule the world.“
• "A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.“
• "Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.“
• "Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.“
• "Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.“
• "There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.“
• "Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.“
• "Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.“
• "Men admire the man who can organize their wishes and thoughts in stone and wood and steel and brass.“
• "The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.“
• "Good men must not obey the laws too well.“
• "The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.“
• "It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.“
• "The search after the great men is the dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of manhood.“
• "Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, but symmetrical men never.“
• "In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.“
• "Men are what their mothers made them.“
• "A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.“
• "Money often costs too much.“
• "In the morning a man walks with his whole body in the evening, only with his legs.“
• "Earth laughs in flowers.“
• "When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.“
• "Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.“
• "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.“
• "A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.“
• "Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.“
• "Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.“
• "I have no hostility to nature, but a child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons.“
• "We see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature.“
• "Nature hates calculators.“
• "We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.“
• "Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.“
• "The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?“
• "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.“
• "Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.“
• "Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.“
• "The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.“
• "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.“
• "A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.“
• "Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.“
• "Nothing external to you has any power over you.“
• "Power and speed be hands and feet.“
• "Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.“
• "Science does not know its debt to imagination.“
• "Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.“
• "Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified.“
• "Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.“
• "The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.“
• "In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.“
• "Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.“
• "We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.“
• "We acquire the strength we have overcome.“
• "To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.“
• "Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.“
• "The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.“
• "This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.“
• "Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.“
• "The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.“
• "Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time.“
• "Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.“
• "We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.“
• "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.“
• "All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.“
• "Trust men and they will be true to you treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.“
• "Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.“
• "Truth is beautiful, without doubt but so are lies.“
• "Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.“
• "Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.“
• "Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.“
• "Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.“
• "The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.“
• "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.“
• "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.“
• "Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.“
• "Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.“
• "The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.“
• "Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.“
• "The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.“
• "The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.“
• "I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.“
• "A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.“
• "As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.“
• "When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.“
• "The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.“
• "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.“

Other authors you might be
interested in

Anne Rice

Abdallah II

Orhan Pamuk

Lionel Messi

Donald Pleasence

Vladimir Horowitz

Katherine Harris

George Crumb

Mika Waltari




Browse all authors