Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory. Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions.

"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself."

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed
easier because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

People wish to be settled. Only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.

Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. 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 object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your reading have been to you like the blast of triumph out of Shakespeare, Seneca, Moses, John and Paul.

In love, in art, in avarice, in politics, in labor, in games, we study to utter our painful secret.

The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.

If I am the devil's child, I will then live from the devil. No law can be sacred to me but that of my own nature.

Trust thyself - every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Nature is the symbol of spirit.

Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every natural action is graceful. Every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine.