Top 15 Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

A great man is always willing to be little.

Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.

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.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

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

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

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

People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.

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

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.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — 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.

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.