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Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

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Famous Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

“The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.”

WantEndsActionCertainAsksUnderstandingAdventureFinePerformancesIntellectPracticalsSinceritySuperficialProbity
Book:Representative Men: Seven Lectures
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“Explore, and explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatise yourself, nor accept another's dogmatism. Why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth, for the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board. Make yourself necessary to the world, and mankind will give you bread, and if not store of it, yet such as shall not take away your property in all men's possessions, in all men's affections, in art, in nature, and in hope.”

IfsMenWorldGivingShouldArtHouseStarsAcceptingMankindPositionComfortBedPropertyAffectionPossessionStoresBreadDesertBoardsPerpetualRoofInquiryLitRenounceAcresPrematureFlatteredBarnsDogmatismTraverse
Book:Nature: Addresses, and Lectures
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“There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent”

ThinkingMenFeelsMindMayMadeReasonDoneWholeIndividualFeltPartyCommonUniversalSaintAccessEvery ManAgentsEstatesSovereignPlatoFreeman
Book:The Portable Emerson: New Edition
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“Society is infected with rude, cynical, restless, and frivolous persons who prey upon the rest, and whom no public opinion concentrated into good manners, forms accepted by the sense of all, can reach; the contradictors and railers at public and private tables, who are like terriers, who conceive it the duty of a dog of honor to growl at any passer-by, and do the honors of the house by barking him out of sight.”

PersonsFormHouseOpinionDogDutyHonorSightTablesAcceptedMannersGood ManCynicalRudeRestlessPublic OpinionPreyFrivolousGood MannersRudenessTerriers
Book:The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life
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“The unique impression of Jesus upon mankind - whose name is not so much written as ploughed into the history of the world - is proof of the subtle virtue of this infusion. Jesus belonged to the race of prophets. He saw with open eyes the mystery of the soul. One man was true to what is in you and me. He, as I think, is the only soul in history who has appreciated the worth of man.”

ThinkingMenWorldSoulEyeJesusNamesRaceVirtueSawsWrittenMysteryMankindUniqueProofImpressionProphetSubtleOne ManAppreciatedWorld HistoryOpen EyesInfusion
Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“We may like well to know what is Plato’s and what is Montesquieu’s or Goethe’s part, and what thought was always dear to the writer himself; but the worth of the sentences consists in their radiancy and equal aptitude to all intelligence. They fit all our facts like a charm. We respect ourselves the more that we know them.”

KnowsWellsMayFactsFitEqualDearSentencesCharmPlatoAptitudePlato SMontesquieu
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)
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