Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essayist, Philosopher, Poet

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a 19th-century American essayist and philosopher known for his ideas on individualism and nature, particularly in his work 'Self-Reliance.'

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Born
May 25, 1803
Died
April 27, 1882
Quotes
4.2K
Rank
#45

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Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (page 128 of 211)

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"Is it not manifest that our academic institutions should have a wider scope; that they should not be timid and keep the ruts of the last generation, but that wise men thinking for themselves and heartily seeking the good of mankind, and counting the cost of innovation, should dare to arouse the young to a just and heroic life; that the moral nature should be addressed in the school-room, and children should be treated as the high-born candidates of truth and virtue?"

Education Wise Children
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"Why should all virtue work in one and the same way? Why should all give dollars? It is very inconvenient to us country folk, and we do not think any good will come of it. We have not dollars; merchants have; let them give them. Farmers will give corn; poets will sing; women will sew; laborers will lend a hand; the children will bring flowers."

Country Children Flower
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"We see young men who owe us a new world, so readily and lavishly they promise, but they never acquit the debt; they die young anddodge the account: or if they live, they lose themselves in the crowd."

Men Promise Debt
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"If a teacher have any opinion which he wishes to conceal, his pupils will become as fully indoctrinated into that as into any which he publishes."

Education Teacher Wish
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"The intelligent have a right over the ignorant, namely, the right of instructing them. The right punishment of one out of tune, isto make him play in tune; the fine which the good, refusing to govern, ought to pay, is, to be governed by a worse man; that his guards shall not handle gold and silver, but shall be instructed that there is gold and silver in their souls, which will make men willing to give them every thing which they need."

Education Responsibility Intelligent
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"You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him. You send him to the Latin class, but much of histuition comes, on his way to school, from the shop- windows."

Education Children Latin
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"The reverence for the deeds of our ancestors is a treacherous sentiment. Their merit was not to reverence the old, but to honor the present moment; and we falsely make them excuses of the very habit which they hated and defied."

Hate Honor Deeds
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"A system-grinder hates the truth."

Hate Grinder
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"The test of civilization is the power of drawing the most benefit out of cities."

Civilization Cities Drawing
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"All ages of belief have been great; all of unbelief have been mean."

Mean Age Belief
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"Ten percent of people can think, another ten percent of people think that they think, and eighty percent of people would rather die than be made to think."

Thinking People Made
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"Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a suggestion of that he should be. Men walk as prophecies of the next age."

Men Growth Age
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"If the individuals who compose the purest circles of aristocracy in Europe, the guarded blood of centuries, should pass in review,in such manner as that we could, at leisure, and critically inspect their behavior, we might find no gentleman, and no lady; for, although excellent specimens of courtesy and high-breeding would gratify us in the assemblage, in the particulars, we should detect offence. Because, elegance comes of no breeding, but of birth."

Blood Europe Circles
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"In our large cities, the population is godless, materialized,--no bond, no fellow-feeling, no enthusiasm. These are not men, but hungers, thirsts, fevers, and appetites walking. How is it people manage to live on,--so aimless as they are? After their peppercorn aims are gained, it seems as if the lime in their bones alone held them together, and not any worthy purpose."

Men Cities People
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"Logic is the procession or proportionate unfolding of the intuition; but its virtue is as silent method; the moment it would appear as propositions, and have a separate value, it is worthless."

Intuition Logic Moments
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"The consciousness in each man is a sliding scale, which identifies him now with the First Cause, and now with the flesh of his body; life above life, in infinite degrees."

Men Degrees Body
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"The sentiment of virtue is a reverence and delight in the presence of certain divine laws. It perceives that this homely game of life we play, covers, under what seem foolish details, principles that astonish."

Law Games Play
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"In old persons, when thus fully expressed, we often observe a fair, plump, perennial waxen complexion, which indicates that all the ferment of earlier days has subsided into serenity of thought and behavior."

Serenity Age Behavior
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