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A self-denial, no less austere than the saint's, is demanded of the scholar. He must worship truth, and forgo all things for that,and choose defeat and pain, so that his treasure in thought is thereby augmented.

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
Must
Defeat
Forgo
Things
Worship
Austere
Choose
Demanded
Less
Thereby
Pain
Scholar
Thought
Denial
Truth
Treasure
Self
Saint
Augmented

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Plato says that the punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse men and the like regret is suggested to all the auditors, as the penalty of abstaining to speak,--that they shall hear worse orators than themselves.
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Self-command is the main elegance.
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Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
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Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.
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A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.
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I honor health as the first muse, and sleep as the condition of health. Sleep benefits mainly by the sound health it produces incidentally also by dreams, into whose farrago a divine lesson is sometimes slipped.
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When there is sympathy, there needs but one wise man in a company and all are wise,--so, a blockhead makes a blockhead of his companion. Wonderful power to benumb possesses this brother.
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But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand.
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Test of the poet is knowledge of love, For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove Never was poet, of late or of yore, Who was not tremulous with love-lore.
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In the highest civilization the book is still the highest delight.
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Teaching is the perpetual end and office of all things. Teaching, instruction is the main design that shines through the sky and earth.
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The wings of Time are black and white, Pied with morning and with night.
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In Nature, all is useful, all is beautiful
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How can we speak of the action of the mind under any divisions, as of its knowledge, of its ethics, of its works, and so forth, since it melts will into perception, knowledge into act? Each becomes the other. Itself alone is.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Intellect is a fire rash and pitiless it melts this wonderful bone-house which is called man. Genius even, as it is the greatestgood, is the greatest harm.
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A man must know how to estimate a sour face. The sour face of the multitude, like thier sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and the newspaper directs.
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Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.
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Power is what they want, not candy-power to execute their design, power to give legs and feet, form and actuality to their thought which, to a clear-sighted man, appears the end for which the universe exists, and all its resources might be well applied.
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He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.
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In youth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, with hope & love, & go as brave as the zodiack. In age we put out another sort of perspiration gout, fever, rheumatism, caprice, doubt, fretting, and avarice.
Ralph Waldo Emerson