Quotes By Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.

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

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

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 chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

Power and speed be hands and feet.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.

Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one.

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.

We see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature.

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

A man is a method, a progressive arrangement; a selecting principle, gathering his like to him; wherever he goes.

We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.