Quote

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' The youth whispers, 'I can.

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
Lows
Thou
Youth
Duty
Nigh
Must
Whispers
Men
Grandeur
Near
Dust

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
Do not be caught by the sensational in nature, as a coarse red-faced sunset, a garrulous waterfall, or a fifteen thousand foot mountain... avoid prettiness - the word looks much like pettiness - and there is but little difference between them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Every man is an infinitely repelling orb, and holds his individual being on that condition.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between these extremes is the equator of life, of thought, or spirit, or poetry,--a narrow belt.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The secret in education lies in respecting the student.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The best conversation is rare. Society seems to have agreed to treat fictions as realities, and realities as fictions and the simple lover of truth, especially if on very high grounds, as a religious or intellectual seeker, finds himself a stranger and alien.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
And in cases where profound conviction has been wrought, the eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a certain belief. It agitates and tears him, and perhaps almost bereaves him of the power of articulation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history isto be read and written.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men should take these moralists at their word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at all hazards this love of power in the people, lest civilization should be undone.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Love not the flower they pluck and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
In spite of warnings, change rarely occurs until the status quo becomes more painful than change. People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
This knot of nature is so well tied that nobody was ever cunning enough to find the two ends.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
When it's dark enough men see stars.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Look out into the July night, and see the broad belt of silver flame which flashes up the half of heaven, fresh and delicate as the bonfires of the meadow-flies. Yet the powers of numbers cannot compute its enormous age,—lasting as space and time,—embosomed in time and space.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Isolation must precede true society.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
We don't grow old. When we cease to grow, we become old.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
I am primarily engaged to myself to be a public servant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all men that there is intelligence andgood will at the heart of all things, and even higher and yet higher leadings. These are my engagements how can your law further or hinder me in what I shall do to men?
Ralph Waldo Emerson