"Silence is a solvent that destroys personality, and gives us leave to be great and universal."
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Quote collection
Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (page 76 of 211)
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"The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action passed, by, as a loss of power."
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"As the eye is the best composer, so light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make beautiful; and the stimulus it affords to the sense, and a sort of infinitude which it hath like space and time, make all matter gay."
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"He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind, he has descended into the secrets of all minds."
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"We want but two or three friends, but these we cannot do without, and they serve us in every thought we think."
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"There is health in table talk and nursery play. We must wear old shoes and have aunts and cousins."
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"Keep cool: it will be all one a hundred years hence."
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"We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state."
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"God will not have his work made manifest by cowards"
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"Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls."
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"There never was a strong character that was not made strong by discipline of the will; there never was a strong people that did not rank subordination and discipline among the signal virtues. Subjection to moods is the mark of a deteriorating morality. There is no baser servitude than that of the man whose caprices are his masters, and a nation composed of such men could not long preserve its liberties."
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"Discontent is want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will."
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"Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character."
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"Truth is the summit of being."
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"Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the mood of the man, whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so serene that we can relish nature or criticism. The more or less depends on structure or temperament. Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and defective store?"
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"Marriage is the perfection which love aimed at, ignorant of what it sought."
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"Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses."
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"No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it."
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"I do not hesitate to read. all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable-any real insight or broad human sentiment."
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"The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough."
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