Quote

There are men too superior to be seen except by a few, as there are notes too high for the scale of most ears.

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
High
Superior
Men
Scale
Superiors
Scales
Notes
Ears
Except
Seen
Catchy

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Not out of those, on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature, out of terrible Druids and Berserkirs, come at last Alfred and Shakespeare.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.
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
There are days when the great are near us, when there is no frown on their brow, no condescension even when they take us by the hand, and we share their thought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
He who would be a man must therefore be a non-conformist.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
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
Image
It is sublime to think and say of another, I need never meet, or speak, or write to him: we need not reinforce ourselves, or send tokens of remembrance I rely on him as on myself: if he did thus and thus, I know it was right.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Obedience alone gives the right to command.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Beware of jokes from which we go away hollow and ashamed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The world exists, as I understand it, to teach the science of liberty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Earth laughs in flowers to see her boastful boys Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet Clear of the grave.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
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
Image
Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.
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
The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with objects immense and eternal.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Discontent is want of self-reliance it is infirmity of will.
Ralph Waldo Emerson