Quote

A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents. A transcendent talent draws so largely on his forces as tolame him a defect pays him revenues on the other side.

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
Sides
Thank
Revenues
Force
Forces
Defect
Must
Terror
Transcendent
Men
Draws
Pays
Pay
Revenue
Talent
Defects
Side
Talents
Stand
Largely

More quotes by 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
When the night is darkest, the stars come out.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
God had infinite time to give us.... He cut it up into a near succession of new mornings, and, with each, therefore, a new idea, new inventions, and new applications.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The wings of Time are black and white, Pied with morning and with night.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Nature is the symbol of Spirit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
I find that the Americans have no passions, they have appetites.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
There is no chance and anarchy in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
In strict science, all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness. Shall we fear to cool our love by mining forthe metaphysical foundation of this elysian temple? Shall I not be as real as the things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they are.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The child realizes to every man his own earliest remembrance, and so supplies a defect in our education, or enables us to live over the unconscious history with a sympathy so tender as to be almost personal experience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
What is man born for but to be a Reformer, a Remaker of what man has made? A renouncer of lies a restorer of truth and good? Imitating that great Nature which embossoms us all, and which sleeps no moment on an old past, but every hour repairs herself, yielding us every morning a new day, with every breath a new life?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
We are of different opinions at different hours, but we always may be said to be at heart on the side of truth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
O Lord! Unhappy is the man whom man can make unhappy.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person's genius is confined to a very few hours.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
We say the cows laid out Boston. Well, there are worse surveyors.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Every wall is a door.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Any relation to the land, the habit of tilling it, or mining it, or even hunting on it, generates the feeling of patriotism. He who keeps shop on it, or he who merely uses it as a support to his desk and ledger, or to his manufactory, values it less.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
People are timid and apologetic they are no longer upright they dare not say I think, I am, but quote some saint or sage. They are ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones they are for what they are they exist with God to-day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson