Ralph Waldo Emerson
459 quotations
Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine
A man is a god in ruins.
We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
The ship of heaven guides itself and will not accept a wooden rudder.
Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?
'Tis a superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the same chemical atoms.
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right.
Can anybody remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
Self-command is the main discipline.
All diseases run into one. Old age.
Do that which is assigned to you and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.
Commerce is a game of skill which everyone cannot play and few can play well.
I pay the schoolmaster, but it is the school boys who educate my son.
Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.
The secret in education lies in respecting the student.
The eloquent man is he who is no eloquent speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a certain belief.
An empire is an immense egotism.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding.
Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.
Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.
Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow.