Quote

The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.

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
Source
Brutes
Belief
Derived
Life
Element
Tragic
Fate
Destiny
Elements
Bitterest
Intellectual
Brute

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
A little integrity is better than any career.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
When the literary class betray a destitution of faith, it is not strange that society should be disheartened and sensualized by unbelief.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Life loiters at the book's first page,-- Ah! could we turn the leaf.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay, Tho' her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive, Heartily know, When half-gods go, The gods arrive.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
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
Image
Look out into the July night, and see the broad belt of silver flame which flashes up the half of heaven, fresh and delicate as the bonfires of the meadow-flies. Yet the powers of numbers cannot compute its enormous age,—lasting as space and time,—embosomed in time and space.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The greatest meliorator of the world is selfish, huckstering Trade.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Far or forgot to me is near Shadow and sunlight are the same The vanished gods to me appear And one to me are shame and fame.They reckon ill who leave me out When me they fly, I am the wings I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The desire of gold is not for gold. It is not the love of much wheat, and wool and household stuff. It is the means of freedom and benefit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Only a biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of a car window.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved, love measure.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Do what you know and perception is converted into character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The value of a dollar is to buy just things a dollar goes on increasing in value with all the genius and all the virtue of the world. A dollar in a university is worth more than a dollar in a jail in a temperate, schooled, law-abiding community than in some sink of crime, where dice, knives, and arsenic are in constant play.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
What I need is someone who will make me do what I can.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Luck is just another word for tenacity of purpose.
Ralph Waldo Emerson