Emerson's Quotes & Sayings

In a lightning-fast move, he placed both of his hands on the brick wall, caging me with his body. He leaned toward me and my heart shifted into a gear I didn't know existed. His warm breath caressed my neck, melting my frozen skin. I tilted my head, waiting for the solid warmth of his body on mine. I could see his eyes again and those dark orbs screamed hunger .
"I heard a rumor."
"What's that?" I struggled to get out.
"It's your birthday."
Terrified speaking would break the spell, I licked my suddenly dry lips and nodded.
"Happy birthday." Noah drew his lips closer to mine; that sweet musky smell overwhelmed my senses. I could almost taste his lips when he unexpectedly took a step back, inhaling deeply. The cold air slapped me into the land of sober. — Katie McGarry

Christ has given us the most glorious interpretation of life's meaning that man has ever had. The fatherhood of God, the fellowship of the Spirit, the sovereignty of righteousness, the law of love, the glory of service, the coming of the Kingdom, the eternal hope- there was never an interpretation of life to compare with that. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

To laugh often and love much ... to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to give one's self ... this is to have succeeded. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

There's a lot of life there, but it's a different sort, because there's a lot less immigrants and a lot more racial, the mix of black and white in particular. I've actually never been to their worship for an extended period of time, so I can't comment wisely on it. — Michael Emerson

A man's wife has more power over him than the state has. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am hindered of meeting God in my brother, because he has shut his own temple doors, and recites fables merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ever the words of the gods resound; But the porches of man's ear seldom in this low life's round are unsealed, that he may hear. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have heard stories from the depths of human lives where men and women were wrestling with the elemental problems of misery and sin--stories that put upon a man's heart a burden of vicarious sorrow, even though he does but listen to them. Here was real human need crying out after the living God revealed in Christ. Consider all the multitudes of men who so need God, and then think of Christian churches making of themselves a cockpit of controversy when there is not a single thing at stake in the business. So much of it does not matter! And there is one thing that does matter--more than anything else in all the world--that men in their personal lives and in their social relationships should know Jesus Christ. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

Poets should be law-givers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil code, and the day's work. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead drunk in the street, carried to the duke's house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke's bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact, that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason, and finds himself a true prince. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's one of the things we find in these congregations is that they are much more likely to be sort of up-beat worship styles, more likely that people in these congregations say "Amen," maybe get up and dance some, tend to be a little bit more lively than a typical white service would be, but not as lively as a typical black service would be. — Michael Emerson

Mr. Emerson watched, almost breathless, as she swirled the wine in her glass expertly, then lifted it so that she could examine it more closely in the candlelight. She brought the glass to her nose, closed her eyes, and sniffed. Then she placed the glass to her plump lips and tasted the wine, holding it in her mouth for a while before swallowing. She opened her eyes, smiled even more widely, and thanked Antonio for his precious gift. — Sylvain Reynard

The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

To this day, H.R. Giger's work remains distinctive in every sense. He is frighteningly unique. — Keith Emerson

But in the US, when you have two separate cultures, each with its right, each of which has come to exist in this political entity in the last couple hundred years, each feeling like, "I have the right to hold onto my culture," and that's what makes it difficult. — Michael Emerson

I have no hostility to nature, but a child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I close my eyes at his intimate touch. It's a slow movement, not one meant to seduce. It's one to show how much he loves me, and I flatten my lips, fighting the urge to cry. Noah nudges me toward him and if it wasn't for his hold, I'd drop like a house of cards.
I fall into him, and Noah wraps me in his arms. "It's okay, baby. We're okay."
I cling tighter to him, because it doesn't feel okay. For the past two months, life was good and easy and everything I dreamed it could be. Despite my efforts, the muscles at the corner of my mouth tremble. I wanted to be done with tears and with whispered comments thrown in my direction like knives and with this overwhelming sense that I'm less and that I'll never belong. — Katie McGarry

The condition of true naming, on the poet's part, is his resigning himself to the divine aura which breathes through forms, and accompanying that. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant's economy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The by-standers look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlour. If this aversation had its origin in contempt and resistance like his own, he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A person's life is limited but serving the people is limitless. I want to devote my limited life to serving the people limitlessly. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Already, China has undermined U.S. foreign policy in efforts to gain access to oil resources in Iran and Sudan. We simply cannot separate the political and economic values of oil. — Jo Ann Emerson

As the U.S. trade deficit, and the portion of that deficit attributed to China, continue to grow, our own economy is at risk of losing its reputation as a leader in world trade. — Jo Ann Emerson

SLEEP IS NOT, DEATH IS NOT; WHO SEEM TO DIE LIVE. HOUSE YOU WERE BORN IN, FRIENDS OF YOUR SPRING-TIME, OLD MAN AND YOUNG MAID, DAY'S TOIL AND ITS GUERDON, THEY ARE ALL VANISHING, FLEEING TO FABLES, CANNOT BE MOORED. - Ralph Waldo Emerson — Ransom Riggs

Say thank you! I want to hear you say it now. Out loud. 'Thank you.' You're saying thank you because your faith is so strong that you don't doubt that whatever the problem, you'll get through it. You're saying thank you because you know that even in the eye of the storm, God has put a rainbow in the clouds. You're saying thank you because you know there's no problem created that can compare to the Creator of all things. Say thank you! — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Can rules or tutors educate
The semigod whom we await?
He must be musical,
Tremulous, impressional,
Alive to gentle influence
Of landscape and of sky
And tender to the spirit-touch
Of man's or maiden's eye. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Railroad iron is a magician's rod, in its power to evoke the sleeping energies of land and water. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Earth's a howling wilderness,
Truculent with fraud and force. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Science in England, in America, is jealous of theory, hates the name of love and moral purpose. There's revenge for this humanity.What manner of man does science make? The boy is not attracted. He says, I do not wish to be such a kind of man as my professor is. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

There's always the question of time. Does time at 10:00 mean 10:00 sharp? Or does it mean give or take a few minutes? And a few minutes, is that plus or minus two minutes? Or plus or minus ten, or maybe a half an hour each way? — Michael Emerson

Yeah, it's funny, working on a show with as large a cast as we have here, your work gets sort of compartmentalized. There's still about half the cast that I've never had a scene with but I have missed working with Terry. — Michael Emerson

Why do we allow people to abuse their children? Why don't we defend the sick and the weak? Why do we let soldiers round up our neighbors and make them wear a star on their clothing and cram them into boxcars? It isn't God who's evil-it's us. — Sylvain Reynard

The day's passage was by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It read: That which befits us, embosomed in beauty and wonder as we are, is cheerfulness, and courage, and the endeavor to realize our aspirations. Shall not the heart which has received so much, trust the Power by which it lives? May it not quit other leadings, and listen to the Soul that has guided it so gently, and taught it so much, secure that the future will be worthy of the past? — Will Schwalbe

For beauty is God's handwriting ... A nd, thank God for it as a cup of His blessing. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth?-Or at least, Do you care about the same truth? — C.S. Lewis

Noah?
A welcome voice - not my mother's, but welcome all the same: Echo. A smile spread across my face. This was too good. Me in a towel, alone in the house with my nymph. I left the bathroom. — Katie McGarry

Fashion which affects to be honor, is often, in all men's experience, only a ballroom-code. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is all literature eavesdropping, and all art Chinese imitation? our life a custom, and our body borrowed, like a beggar's dinner, from a hundred charities? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was a kid, I used to listen to my Emerson radio late at night under the covers. I started by listening to jazz in the late 1940s and then vocal harmony groups like the Four Freshmen, the Modernaires and the Hi-Lo's. I loved Stan Kenton's big band - with those dark chords and musicians who could swing cool with individual sounds. — Frankie Valli

Nor sequent centuries could hitOrbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Scripture is vast, and people can pick and choose what they emphasize, and so for hundreds of years verses that said that you are to welcome the stranger, that with Christ there's neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, we've broken down the dividing wall with the original church, where Christians were first called Christian was the church of Antioch in which for the first time you had Jews, Gentiles of all different ethnicities come together as one people. That's when they were called Christians. — Michael Emerson

"Hi, Isaiah. How are you doing, Beth?" Echo asked.
Beth took a long draw off her cigarette, glaring at Echo. Standing her ground, Echo stared back, pretending Beth's fury didn't matter to her. Pride flooded my body. — Katie McGarry

He smiled affably at the burglar, a burly fellow whom he continued to hold with one hand, as easily as if he had been a child. The entire household had been aroused, and a good number of them had joined in, shouting questions and brandishing various deadly instruments. The burglar glared wildly at Emerson, bare to the waist and bulging with muscle - at Gargery and his cudgel - at Selim, fingering a knife even longer than Nefret's - at assorted footmen armed with pokers, spits, and cleavers - and at the giant form of Daoud advancing purposefully toward him. 'It's a bleedin' army!' he gurgled. 'The lyin' barstard said you was some kind of professor! — Elizabeth Peters

When it's dark enough men see stars. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

In every man's memory, with the hours when life culminated are usually associated certain books which met his views. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We're all shaped to some degree by our own biographies and cultures and it's easy to believe that what's happened before determines what has to come next. The American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson thought otherwise. "What lies behind us," he wrote, "and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Finding your Element is about discovering what lies within you and, in doing so, transforming what lies before you. "Risk — Ken Robinson

Man's life is a progress, not a station. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is easy to see that what is best written or done by genius in the world, was no man's work but came by wide social labor, whena thousand wrought like one, sharing the same impulse. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

That's the point of words. They get around. — Kevin Emerson

So when the soul of the poet has come to ripeness of thought, she detaches and sends away from it its poems or songs, - a fearless, sleepless, deathless progeny, which is not exposed to the accidents of the weary kingdom of time: a fearless, vivacious offspring, clad with wings (such was the virtue of the soul out of which they came), which carry them fast and far, and infix them irrecoverably into the hearts of men. These wings are the beauty of the poet's soul. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man's Reason is sufficient for his guidance, if used. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

All altruism springs from putting yourself in the other person's place. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

The Telescope, the Fluxions, the invention of Logarithms and the frenzy of multiplication, often for its own sake, that follow'd have for Emerson all been steps of an unarguable approach to God, a growing clarity,- Gravity, the pulse of time, the finite speed of Light present themselves to him as aspect of God's character. It's like becoming friendly with an erratic, powerful, potentially dangerous member of the Aristocracy. He holds no quarrel with the Creator's sovereignty, but is repeatedly appall'd at the lapses in Attention, the flaws in Design, the squand'rings of life and energy, the failures to be reasonable, or to exercise common sense,- first appall'd, then angry. We are taught,- we believe,- that it is love of the Creation which drives the Philosopher in his Studies. Emerson is driven, rather, by a passionate Resentment. — Thomas Pynchon

You're scared," he said quietly.
"Scared?" I scoffed. "Of what?"
"Of anything real. And what we have is real. You love me and it terrifies you."
"I don't love you," I lied.
He grabbed my face then, dragging me closer with both hands. "You love me. I know you do. I know it because I can see it in your eyes ... in the way you look at me." He inhaled. "It's the same way I look at you. — Sophie Jordan

We must be our own before we can be another's. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I spent a lot of time developing in books why worshipping separately actually impacts inequality, economic, social, on and on. So I really do believe there are huge advantages to being together even though it's difficult, even though we have a lot to learn. — Michael Emerson

A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

In Haydn's oratorios, the notes present to the imagination not only motions, as, of the snake, the stag, and the elephant, but colors also; as the green grass. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Despite modifying his writing to suit the audiences, despite writing plays to draw large crowds, despite using other people's materials and copying plotlines from history, Shakespeare remains the preeminent artist of the English language and his reputation has reached such stratospheric heights as to border on idolatry (or Bardolatry as some people call it). Shakespeare was a product of his time and learned from his peers, but his plays transcend his time as all great works do - his genius is his own. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? — William Shakespeare

The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be organized. Man's culture can spare nothing, wants all material. He is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It was an all-white church. It was starting to decline. They had to hire a new pastor, and they hired him. But he came under the condition that "I want and I'm called to make this a multiethnic church." So they knew. He's interesting because he's part-Asian, part-white. He's married to a Hispanic woman, so that's their family and that's their vision. — Michael Emerson

What terrible questions we are learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, cities, and men were swallowed up, and all trace of them gone. We are coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men's minds all vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were framed upon. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We've done a lot of studies to see when they do happen, why, and I mean there's a variety of reasons. But one, it starts with a commitment where they decide this is going to be who we are. Maybe it's out of their faith, a new way of looking at their faith, that we must be integrated across race. — Michael Emerson

India was China's teacher in religion and imaginative literature, and the world's teacher in trignometry, quandratic equations, grammar, phonetics, Arabian Nights, animal fables, chess, as well as in philosophy, and that she inspired Boccaccio, Goethe, Herder, Schopenhauer, Emerson, and probably also old Aesop. — Lin Yutang

When your world feels like it's been shattered to a million pieces, it doesn't hurt any less or more because of the details. — Erin Emerson

There comes a time in each man's education in which he comes to the conclusion that envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide, and society in in conspiracy against each one of its members. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

She's out of your league."
Beth giggled. "That's because she turned you down flat freshman year. Isaiah thought he could date up and asked a sophomore out. Little did he know Ms. Perfect had been dating King Luke for a year. — Katie McGarry

Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply,- "'Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I never meet a church that wishes they didn't do it. I never meet a leader that wishes they didn't do it. They will all say, to the person, it's hard. It's difficult. It comes with complexities and confusion as you're trying to go across cultures, and you don't understand, you didn't mean to offend somebody but you've offended somebody. But they will all say it just does something. — Michael Emerson

He sauntered to the counter. "What can I do for you?"
The red bandana he wore held back the hair that typically covered his eyes. I loved his eyes. Chocolate-brown, full of mischief and a spark ready to light the world on fire. "Can I have a glass of water, please?" And please let it be free.
"Is that it?"
My stomach growled, loud enough for Noah to hear. "Yep, that's it."
He fixed me a glass and handed it to me. "Are you sure you wouldn't like a burger? A nice thick burger on a toasted bun with salty fries on the side?"
I sucked on my straw, gulping the ice water down. Funny, water didn't give me that warm, fuzzy, full feeling like a burger and fries would. "I'm fine, thank you."
"Suit yourself. You see that nice-looking piece of meat right there?" He motioned to the patty frying. The aroma made my mouth water. — Katie McGarry

Will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

In your actor's heart, you know when you're playing well. Others may not always agree with you, but I'm always aware of when the scene is cooking or not. You have an instinct about that from years of doing scenes and plays, and I think it stands you in good stead even in the TV world. — Michael Emerson

We all know how we can be turned around by a magic place; that's why we travel, often. And yet we all know, too, that the change cannot be guaranteed. Travel is a fool's paradise, Emerson reminded us, if we think that we can find anything far off that we could not find at home. — Pico Iyer

The rain has spoiled the farmer's day;
Shall sorrow put my books away?
Thereby are two days lost. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I blame my parents. It's their fault for raising me with a little guilt-demon living in my stomach. I can't ever just do something without having to worry about whether it's right. Now, don't worry, I can usually overcome it. — Kevin Emerson

a man only knows what he's experienced — Ralph Waldo Emerson

[A]s if life were a thunder-storm wherein you can see by a flash the horizon, and then cannot see your hand ... — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The true poem is the poet's mind; the true ship is the ship-builder. In the man, could we lay him open, we should see the reason for the last flourish and tendril of his work; as every spine and tint in the sea-shell preexist in the secreting organs of the fish. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The crystal sphere of thought is as concentrical as the geological structure of the globe. As our soils and rocks lie in strata, concentric strata, so do all men's thinkings run laterally, never vertically. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

There was never a man born so wise or good, but one or more companions came into the world with him, who delight in his faculty, and report it. I cannot see without awe, that no man thinks alone and no man acts alone, but the divine assessors who came up with him into life,
now under one disguise, now under another,
like a police in citizen's clothes, walk with him, step for step, through all kingdoms of time. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being on a young soul to which they are totally unfit. Cannot we let people be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make that man another you. One's enough. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Downsides, yeah, and when there are more downsides when churches first start - they go through stages of transforming to becoming multiracial. So in the beginning stages there's often a lot of pain, a lot of confusion, a lot of people leave. — Michael Emerson

Yet some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise, and wherever the vein of thought reaches down into the profound, there is no danger from vanity. Solemn friends will warn them of the danger of the head's being turned by the flourish of trumpets, but they can afford to smile. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The first steps in Agriculture, Astronomy, Zoology, (those first steps which the farmer, the hunter, and the sailor take,) teach that nature's dice are always loaded; that in her heaps and rubbish are concealed sure and useful results. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man's library is a sort of harem. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Stay put."
Her laughter continues to dance over my skin. "And if I don't?"
There's a seductive tease in her voice that causes me to drop my head and moan. I glance over my shoulder, and Echo's giving me that hooded look. Fuck me. "Then I'll be forced to kiss you into compliance."
Her eyes fall to my lips. "Good luck with that." — Katie McGarry

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it, because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator, something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is no man of Nature's worth
In the circle of the earth. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

China is not only formidable, it is also aggressively building its own economic infrastructure. Just a few years from now, China will rival the U.S. and the European Union in global market power. It already has surpassed us in population. — Jo Ann Emerson

Love is like wildflowers;
It's often found in the most unlikely places. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let us even bid our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, "Who are you? Unhand me: I will be dependent no more." Ah! seest thou not, O brother, that thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform, and only be more each other's, because we are more our own? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The sanity of society is a balance of a thousand insanity's. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Henceforth, please God, forever I forego the yolk of men's opinions. I will be light-hearted as a bird and live with God. I find him in the bottom of my heart, and I hear continually his voice therein. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is originality? It is being one's self, and reporting accurately what we see and are. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Go face the fire at sea, or the cholera in your friend's house, or the burglar in your own, or what danger lies in the way of duty, knowing you are guarded by the cherubim of Destiny. If you believe in Fate to your harm, believe it, at least, for your good. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the most popular illustrations we use in Love and Respect Conferences compares women and men to pink and blue. The audience responds immediately when I talk about how she sees through pink sunglasses and hears with pink hearing aids, while he sees through blue sunglasses and hears with blue hearing aids. In other words, women and men are very different. Yet, when blue blends with pink, it becomes purple, God's color - the color of royalty. The way for pink and blue to blend is spelled out in Ephesians 5:33: "[Every husband] must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband" (NIV). Living out Ephesians 5:33 is the key to blending together as one to reflect the very image of God. — Emerson Eggerichs