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But what help from these fineries or pedantries? What help from thought? Life is not dialectics. We, I think, in these times, have had lessons enough of the futility of criticism.

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
Thinking
Criticism
Life
Lessons
Help
Times
Helping
Thought
Dialectics
Enough
Pedantry
Think
Futility

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Human character evermore publishes itself. The most fugitive deed and word, the intimated purpose, express character.
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Your actions speak so loud, I can't hear what you say.
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Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds.
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So far as a person thinks they are free.
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Every man is as lazy as he dares to be.
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I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward.Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the Spartan fife.
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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.
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Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdom which cannot help itself.
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What we seek we shall find what we flee from flees from us.
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Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men or they are no better than dreams.
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If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways, I keep and pass and turn again.
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The permanence of all books is fixed by no effort friendly or hostile, but by their own specific gravity, or the intrinsic importance of their contents to the constant mind of man.
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A man's wife has more power over him than the state has.
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The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.
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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.
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I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me.
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If a man is at heart just, then in so far is he God the safety of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God do enter into that man with justice.
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A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man.
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Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.
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Nature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us.
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