Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis."

"A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature."

"A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before."

"A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants."

"A man is a god in ruins."

"A man's what he thinks about all day long."

"Accept your genius and say what you think."

"As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker."

"As soon as there is life there is danger."

"Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them."

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

"Conversation enriches the understanding; but solitude is the school of genius."

"Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors."

"Do what you know and perception is converted into character."

"Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons."

"Fame is proof that the people are gullible."

"Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence."

"Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world."

"Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line."

"Genius always finds itself a century too early."

"Hitch your wagon to a star."

"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

"It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have it, it requires ten times as much skill to keep it."

"Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone."

"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."

"Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood."

"Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim."

"Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations."

"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting -- a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing."

"No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character."

"No man ever prayed heartily without learning something."

"Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind."

"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."

"Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."

"Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say we have had our day."

"Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature."

"People only see what they are prepared to see."

"People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never."

"Self-command is the main discipline."

"The greatest genius is the most indebted person."

"The years teach us much the days never knew."

"There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right."

"There is a tendency for things to right themselves."

"There is creative reading as well as creative writing."

"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men -- that is genius."

"To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven."

"Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies."

"We aim above the mark to hit the mark."

"We are the prisoners of ideas."

"We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes."

"We boil at different degrees."

"We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count."

"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say."

"Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble."