Quote

Every action has an ancestor of a thought.

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
Ancestor
Action
Thought
Every

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Conversation is the laboratory and workshop of the student.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Looking at God instantly reduces our disposition to dissent from our brother.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
In youth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, and go as brave as the zodiac.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
That is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what is unusual the wise man wonders at the usual.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The squirrel hoards nuts and the bee gathers honey, without knowing what they do, and they are thus provided for without selfishness or disgrace.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Character wants room must not be crowded on by persons, nor be judged from glimpses got in the press of affairs, or on few occasions. It needs perspective, as a great building.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda-these are in the system, and our habits are like theirs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can't dishearten it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence, whether a man be behind it or no.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Imagination is a very high sort of seeing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
There is a principle which is the basis of things, which all speech aims to say, and all action to evolve, a simple, quiet, undescribed, undescribable presence, dwelling very peacefully in us, our rightful lord: we are not to do, but to let do not to work, but to be worked upon.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
You will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday though it may be, I have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say even though we may repeat the words ever so often.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The peace of the man who has forsworn the use of the bullet seems to me not quite peace, but a canting impotence.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The lover is made happier by his love than the object of his affection.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say we have had our day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson