Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are wiser than we know. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only way to have a friend is to be one. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
God enters by a private door into every individual. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our best thoughts come from others. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
We gain the strength of the temptation we resist. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The first wealth is health. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Science does not know its debt to imagination. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
All diseases run into one, old age. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is what he thinks about all day long. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men are what their mothers made them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson