Poet · American · 1803 – 1882 · 245 quotes
Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Poet · American · 1803 – 1882
Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.
Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.
There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.
We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases.
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.
Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.
No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.
People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never.
People that seem so glorious are all show; underneath they are like everyone else.
For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.
The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.
We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.
Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.
As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.
The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.
Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural.
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.
The highest revelation is that God is in every man.
No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.
Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.
Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
Doing well is the result of doing good. That's what capitalism is all about.
Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.
The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.
Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.
The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.
Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.
Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
God screens us evermore from premature ideas.
An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.
Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.
Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.
Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.
Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.
America is another name for opportunity.
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
Some books leave us free and some books make us free.
We are always getting ready to live but never living.
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.
