Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
That which dominates our imagination and our thoughts will determine our life and character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Dominates
Coaching
Determine
Thoughts
Imagination
Character
Life
More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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
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
The laws of light and of heat translate each other-so do the laws of sound and colour and so galvanism, electricity and magnetism are varied forms of this selfsame energy.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Genius has infused itself into nature. It indicates itself by a small excess of good, a small balance in brute facts always favorable to the side of reason.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The best nations are those most widely related and navigation, as effecting a world-wide mixture, is the most potent advancer ofnations.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no event greater in life than the appearance of new persons about our hearth, except it be the progress of the characterwhich draws them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The greatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our friends early appear to us as representatives of certain ideas, which they never pass or exceed. They stand on the brink of the ocean of thought and power, but they never take a single step that would bring them there.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous or when they are most luxurious-they are conservatives after dinner.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is the privilege of any human work which is well done to invest the doer with a certain haughtiness. He can well afford not to conciliate, whose faithful work will answer for him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Never try to make anyone like you: you know, and God knows, that one of you is enough.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every individual man has a bias which he must obey, and...it is only as he feels and obeys this that he rightly develops and attains his legitimate power in the world. It is his magnetic needle, which points always in one direction to his proper path.... He is never happy nor strong until he finds it, keeps it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Conversation is the laboratory and workshop of the student.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Perception is a mirror not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
He is only rich who owns the day. There is no king, rich man, fairy, or demon who possesses such power as that.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are made aware that magnitude of material things is relative, and all objects shrink and expand to serve the passion of the poet. Thus, in his sonnets, the lays of birds, the scents and dyes of flowers, he finds to be the shadow of his beloved time, which keeps her from him, is his chest the suspicion she has awakened, is her ornament
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes: it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is rich, it is scientific but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something else is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts.
Ralph Waldo Emerson