Quote

Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.

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
Vices
Function
Necessary
Every
Exaggerating
Exaggeration
Virtuous
Vice

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The Times are the masquerade of the eternities trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise the receptacle in which the Past leaves its history the quarry out of which the genius of today is building up the Future.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Every man has a vocation. The talent is the call.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The next best thing to saying a good thing yourself is to quote one.
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
When the spirit is not master of the world, then it is its dupe.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
London is the epitome of our times, and the Rome of to-day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The gentleman is a man of truth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice and, in furnishing so much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities of his imagination.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look,begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
As Arkwright and Whitney were the demi-gods of cotton, so prolific Time will yet bring an inventor to every plant. There is not a property in nature but a mind is born to seek and find it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
When its errands are noble and adequate, a steamboat bridging the Atlantic between Old and New England, and arriving at its ports with the punctuality of a planet, is a step of man into harmony with nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
I honor health as the first Muse.
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
I would study, I would know, I would admire forever.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Of all debts, men are least willing to pay their taxes what a satire this is on government.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the notion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber for nothing on earth is solitary but every thing hath affinities infinite.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
If a man is at heart just, then in so far is he God the safety of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God do enter into that man with justice.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire.
Ralph Waldo Emerson