Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.

Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. 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 seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

For all our penny-wisdom, for all out soul-destroying slavery to habit, it is not to be doubted that all men have sublime thoughts.

But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things.

Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.

He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread.

We are never tired so long as we can see far enough.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

The wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more.

Blessed are those who have no talent!

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

History must be this or it is nothing. Every law which the state enacts indicates a fact in human nature; that is all. We must in ourselves see the necessary reason of every fact, — see how it could and must be.

Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.