Quote

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

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
Voice
Individual
Heroism
Great
Contradiction
Good
Obedience
Time
Impulse
Works
Mankind
Secret

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
There is also something excellent in every audience,--the capacity of virtue. They are ready to be beatified.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man has taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
But genius is religious. It is a larger imbibing of the common heart.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Contemporary American psychiatrist It is a happy talent to know how to play.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Women see better than men. Men see lazily, if they do not expect to act. Women see quite without any wish to act.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Riding a horse is not a gentle hobby, to be picked up and laid down like a game of solitaire. It is a grand passion. It seizes a person whole and once it has done so, he/she will have to accept that his life will be radically changed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
My good hoe as it bites the ground revenges my wrongs, and I have less lust to bite my enemies. In the smoothing the rough hillocks, I smooth my temper.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The universe is represented in every one of it's particles. Everything is made of one hidden stuff. The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The true doctrine of omnipresence is that God appears with all His parts in every moss and cobweb.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Literature is eavesdropping.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
My son, a perfect little boy of five years and three months, had ended his earthly life. You can never sympathize with me you can never know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest of all.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
If the East loves infinity, the West delights in boundaries.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The angels are so enamored of the language that is spoken in heaven that they will not distort their lips with the hissing and unmusical dialects of men, but speak their own, whether their be any who understand it or not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Every body we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to interpose between himself and his guest. Does it not seem as if man was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a full rencontre front to front with his fellow?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The greatest discoveries are those that shed light unto ourselves.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Every man is grave alone.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Wise cultivated, genial conversation is the last flower of civilization, and the best result which life has to offer us,--a cup for gods, which has no repentance. Conversation is our account of ourselves. All we have, all we can, all we know, is brought into play, and as the reproduction in finer form, of all our havings.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The noblest ministry of nature is to stand as the apparition of God.
Ralph Waldo Emerson