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The crime which bankrupts men and nations is that of turning aside from one's main purpose to serve a job here and there.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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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
Nations
Purpose
Jobs
Men
Aside
Turning
Main
Serve
Crime
More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The task ahead of us is never as great as the power behind us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tablets yet unbroken: The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We fill the hands and nurseries of our children with all manner of dolls, drums and horses, withdrawing their eyes from the plain face and... Nature, the sun and moon, the animals, the water and stones, which should be their toys.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The writer, like a priest, must be exempted from secular labor. His work needs a frolic health he must be at the top of his condition.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Never lose an opportunity to see anything that is beautiful. It is God's handwriting a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word but it is not a language taken to pieces and dead in the dictionary, but the language put together into a most significant and universal sense. I wish to learn this language - not that I may know a new grammar, but that I may read the great book which is written in that tongue.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Activity is contagious.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-men can do little for him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every man I meet is in some way my superior...
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The language of the street is always strong.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Beauty rests on necessities.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The scholar may lose himself in schools, in words, and become a pedant but when he comprehends his duties, he above all men is arealist, and converses with things.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A beautiful woman is a practical poet.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called history is.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Commonsense is the wick of the candle.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do what you're afraid to do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When the man is at home, his standing in society is well known and quietly taken but when he is abroad, it is problematical, and is dependent on the success of his manners.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Knowledge exists to be imparted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
