Quote

So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person's genius is confined to a very few hours.

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
Genius
Amount
Hours
Retrospect
Persons
Confined
Person
Productivity
Much
Routine
Time
Preparation
Spent

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
Who shall forbid a wise skepticism, seeing that there is no practical question on which anything more than an approximate solution can be had?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Some will always be above others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The moral sense is always supported by the permanent interest of the parties. Else, I know not how, in our world, any good would ever get done.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
A part of fate is the freedom of man. Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in his soul.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The world leaves no track in space, and the greatest action of man no mark in the vast idea.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Every thing admonishes us how needlessly long life is.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
We ask for long life, but 'tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Nothing is arbitrary, nothing is insulated in beauty. It depends forever on the necessary and the useful. The plumage of the bird, the mimic plumage of the insect, has a reason for its rich colors in the constitution of the animal. Fitness is so inseparable an accompaniment of beauty, that it, has been taken for it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Expediency of literature, reason of literature, lawfulness of writing down a thought, is questioned much is to say on both sides,and, while the fight waxes hot, thou, dearest scholar, stick to thy foolish task, add a line every hour, and between whiles add a line.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
We acquire the strength we have overcome.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Men of sense esteem wealth to be the assimilation of nature to themselves, the converting of the sap and juices of the planet to the incarnation and nutriment of their design.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Europe has always owed to oriental genius its divine impulses. What these holy bards said, all sane men found agreeable and true.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
I have just been conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will make it for a moment appear impossible that thousands of human beings might exercise towards each other the grandest and simplest sentiments, as well as a knot of friends, or a pair of lovers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
What is civilization? I answer, the power of good women.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
A beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures it is the finest of fine arts.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action. What they have done commits and enforces them to do the same again. The first act, which was to be an experiment, becomes a sacrament.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Bonaparte knew but one merit, and rewarded in one and the same way the good soldier, the good astronomer, the good poet, the good player.
Ralph Waldo Emerson