200+ Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Love, Life, Friendships, and Learning You'll Never Forget

Quoel
November 27, 2022

Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.

People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never. – Ralph Waldo Emerson


Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

  1. People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  2. Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  3. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  4. Every artist was first an amateur. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  5. What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  6. People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  7. Manners require time and nothing is more vulgar than haste. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  8. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  9. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  10. When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  11. There is creative reading as well as creative writing. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  12. What you are comes to you. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  13. What you are comes to you. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  14. Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short in all management of human affairs. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  15. Life is a journey, not a destination. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  16. The only way to have a friend is to be one. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  17. You become what you think about all day long. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  18. You become what you think about all day long. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  19. The last change in our point of view gives the whole world a pictorial air. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  20. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  21. The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  22. Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  23. Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it is refused. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  24. What your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul’s emphasis is always right. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  25. Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  26. A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  27. We are always getting ready to live but never living. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  28. We are always getting ready to live but never living. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  29. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  30. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  31. A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  32. To be great is to be misunderstood. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  33. To be great is to be misunderstood. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  34. Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  35. Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  36. Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  37. Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  38. With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  39. All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  40. Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  41. Some books leave us free and some books make us free. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  42. If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  43. We cannot overstate our debt to the past, but the moment has the supreme claim. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  44. What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  45. We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  46. Beauty without expression is boring. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  47. We must be our own before we can be another’s. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  48. Every man I meet is in some way my superior. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  49. A good indignation brings out all one’s powers. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  50. Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  51. We are rich through only what we give and poor only through what we refuse. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  52. The real and lasting victories are those of peace and not of war. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  53. Men love to wonder; that is the seed of science. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  54. Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  55. Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  56. Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  57. Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  58. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  59. One of the most beautiful compensations in life is that no person can help another without helping themselves. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  60. Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  61. I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  62. The first wealth is health. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  63. Character is higher than intellect… A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  64. The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  65. The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  66. A man’s years should not be counted until he has something else to count. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  67. The desire for gold is not gold. It is for the means for freedom and benefit. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  68. Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  69. Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  70. What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  71. People that seem so glorious are all show; underneath, they are like everyone else. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  72. No great man ever complains of want of opportunity. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  73. You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  74. A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  75. The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  76. All the good of nature is the soul’s, and may be had, if paid for in nature’s lawful coin, that is, by labor which the heart and the head allow. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  77. The ancestor of every action is a thought. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  78. We aim above the mark to hit the mark. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  79. We aim above the mark to hit the mark. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  80. It is one of the blessings of old friends is that you can afford to be stupid with them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  81. People only see what they are prepared to see. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  82. To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  83. In the morning, a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only in his legs. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  84. A great man is always willing to be little. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  85. A great man is always willing to be little. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  86. God enters by a private door into every individual. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  87. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  88. Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  89. Who you are speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you’re saying. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  90. It is not the length of life, but the depth. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  91. Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learned would not miss. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  92. The good news is that the moment you decide that what you kow is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  93. Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  94. As we grow old, the beauty steals inward. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  95. Economy does not consist in saving the coal, but in using the time while it burns. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  96. We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  97. The older you get, the older you want to get. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  98. A man is usually more careful of his money than he his is principles. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  99. Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  100. Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  101. To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  102. Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  103. What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  104. Character is higher than intellect. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  105. Character is higher than intellect. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  106. Hitch your wagon to a star. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  107. People destined to meet will do so, apparently by chance, at precisely the right moment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  108. Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  109. Nature is reckless of the individual. When she has points to carry, she carries them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  110. Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  111. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  112. He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  113. Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  114. Good men must not obey the laws too well. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  115. An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  116. Knowledge is the antidote to fear. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  117. Knowledge is the antidote to fear. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  118. Throw a stone into the stream and the ripples that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  119. As soon as there is life, there is danger. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  120. As soon as there is life, there is danger. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  121. All mankind love a lover. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  122. The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  123. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  124. Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  125. Self-trust is the first secret of success. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  126. Doing well is the result of doing good. That’s what capitalism is all about. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  127. Make the most of yourself….for that is all there is of you. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  128. Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  129. In skating over thin ice, our safety is speed. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  130. Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  131. The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude and into freedom. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  132. Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  133. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  134. The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  135. For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  136. Make yourself necessary to somebody. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  137. Make yourself necessary to somebody. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  138. Win as if you were used to it; lose as if you enjoyed it for a change. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  139. Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  140. The secret in education lies in respecting the student. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  141. The secret in education lies in respecting the student. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  142. All is riddle and the key to a riddle is another riddle. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  143. How much of human life is lost in waiting. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  144. The greatest gift is a portion of thyself. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  145. The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  146. Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  147. There is a tendency for things to right themselves. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  148. Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self? – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  149. The earth laughs in flowers. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  150. The earth laughs in flowers. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  151. Happy will the house be in which the relationships are formed from character. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  152. Science does not know its debt to imagination. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  153. Science does not know its debt to imagination. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  154. This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  155. Be silly. Be honest. Be kind. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  156. Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  157. Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  158. The reward of a thing well done is having done it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  159. Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  160. I do not wish more external goods—neither possessions, nor honors, nor powers, nor persons. The gain is apparent; the tax is certain. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  161. Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  162. The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  163. The years teach much which the days never know. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  164. Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  165. People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  166. Imagination is a very high sort of seeing. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  167. “Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  168. “The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  169. “Better to know a few things which are good and necessary, than many things which are useless and mediocre.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  170. “Adopt the pace of nature—her secret is patience.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  171. “An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  172. “Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  173. “Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  174. “By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  175. “The dull pray; the geniuses are light mockers.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  176. “Every burned book enlightens the world.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  177. “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  178. “Accept the place the divine providence has found for you—the society of your contemporaries, the connection of eveGreat men have always done so.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  179. “A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  180. “Discontent is the want of self-reliance—it is infirmity of will.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  181. “An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the censures.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  182. “Life is progress, and not a station.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  183. “Write in your heart that every day is the best day of the year.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  184. “There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  185. “Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  186. “We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  187. “Make yourself necessary to the world, and mankind will give you bread.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  188. “But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  189. “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  190. “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  191. “There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  192. “The invariable mark of a dream is to see it come true.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  193. “When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your objective.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  194. “It will never make any difference to a hero what the laws are. His greatness will shine and accomplish itself unto the end, whether they second him or not.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  195. “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
  196. “Do not believe that possibly, you can escape the reward of your action.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  197. “Whatever limits us, we call fate.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  198. “That what we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  199. “What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  200. “Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet a man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  201. “The characteristic of a genuine heroism is its persistence.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson