Quote

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Age: 78 †
Born: 1803
Born: May 25
Died: 1882
Died: April 27
Biographer
Diarist
Essayist
Philosopher
Poet
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
R. W. Emerson
Waldo Emerson
Little
Philosopher
Adored
Mind
Foolish
Inconsistency
Silly
Statesmen
Minds
Foolishness
Divine
Misunderstood
Science
Consistency
Hobgoblin
Political
Reliance
Divines
Littles
Philosophers
Nonconformity

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Money often costs too much, and power and pleasure are not cheap.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
What is there of the divine in a load of brick? What ... in a barber shop? ... Much. All.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
You cannot institute, without peril of charlatanism.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence, the book-learned class, who value books, as such not as related to nature and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate with the world and the soul. Hence, the restorers of readings, the emendators, the bibliomaniacs of all degrees.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
A man of good sense but of little faith, whose compassion seemed to lead him to church as often as he went there, said to me 'that he liked to have concerts, and fairs, and churches, and other public amusements go on.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth, his hall the azure dome.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
It is not an arbitrary decree of God, but in the nature of man, that a veil shuts down on the facts of to-morrow for the soul will not have us read any other cipher than that of cause and effect. By this veil, which curtains events, it instructs the children of men to live in to-day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
As we refine, our checks become finer. If we rise to spiritual culture, the antagonism takes a spiritual form.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The aspect of nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands folded upon the breast. The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The vocabulary of an omniscient man would embrace words and images excluded from polite conversation. What would be base, or even obscene, to the obscene, becomes illustrious, spoken in a new connexion of thought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Test of the poet is knowledge of love, For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove Never was poet, of late or of yore, Who was not tremulous with love-lore.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Science does not know its debt to imagination.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The moral sense reappears today with the same morning newness that has been from of old the fountain of beauty and strength. You say there is no religion now. 'Tis like saying in rainy weather, There is no sun, when at that moment we are witnessing one of its superlative effects.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Heaven is large, and affords space for all modes of love and fortitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Your work should be in praise of what you love.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
You must let go of a thing for a new one to come to you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Beside all the moral benefit which we may expect from the farmer's profession, when a man enters it considerately, this promised the conquering of the soil, plenty, and beyond this, the adorning of the country with every advantage and ornament which labor, ingenuity, and affection for a man's home, could suggest.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.
Ralph Waldo Emerson