Quote

Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.

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
World
Action
Works
Parade
Live
Pay
Parades
Done
Courage
Reliance
Much
Pieces
Apology
Good
Fine
Appearance
Would
Called
Charity
Men
Wish
Daily
Expiate
Life
Living
Piece
Expiation

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
God had infinite time to give us.... He cut it up into a near succession of new mornings, and, with each, therefore, a new idea, new inventions, and new applications.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
In the history of the individual is always an account of his condition, and he knows himself to be a party to his present estate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
In every landscape, the point of astonishment is the meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the first hillock aswell as from the top of the Alleghanies. The stars at night stoop down over the brownest, homeliest common, with all the spiritual magnificence which they shed on the Campagna, or on the marble deserts of Egypt.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
A state of war or anarchy, in which law has little force, is so far valuable, that it puts every man on trial. The man of principle is known as such, and even in the fury of faction is respected.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Mankind divides itself into two classes,--benefactors and malefactors. The second class is vast the first a handful.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
For all symbols are fluxional all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Man was born to be rich, or to inevitably grow rich, by the use of his faculties: by the union of thought with nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The element running through entire nature, which we popularly call Fate, is known to us as limitation. Whatever limits us, we callFate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Everything that is popular, it has been said, deserves the attention of philosophers: and this is for the obvious reason, that although it may not be of any worth in itself, yet it characterizes the people.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptation we resist.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
If you believe in fate, believe in it, at least, for your good.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Love should make joy but our benevolence is unhappy. Our Sunday-schools, and churches, and pauper-societies are yokes to the neck. We pain ourselves to please nobody.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
But a compassion for that which is not and cannot be useful and lovely, is degrading and futile.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Classics which at home are drowsily read have a strange charm in a country inn, or in the transom of a merchant brig.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The regular course of studies, the years of academical and professional education, have not yielded me better facts than some idle books under the bench at the Latin School.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
We are not free to use today, or to promise tomorrow, because we are already mortgaged to yesterday.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
He who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the plants, the waters, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments - is the rich and royal man.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
It the proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.
Ralph Waldo Emerson