Ralph Waldo Emmerson Quotes & Sayings

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

Writing is the most cathartic experience of my life. — April Wood

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide. Him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him because he did not need it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Prayer that craves a particular commodity - anything less than all good, is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

All the ordinary circumstances of life, without which nothing could be imagined, ceased to exist for Levin. — Leo Tolstoy

We hope vaguely but dread precisely. — Paul Valery

When private men shall act with original views, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Truth, for any man, is that which makes him a man. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Emotional damage is never easy to measure, but mothers who are alive but psychically absent impose filial burdens which knot their children's feelings in a way biologic orphans are spared. — Eileen Simpson

All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Actors have given up their clout. Now decision making is in the hands of lighting men, designers, bankers, special-effects people. We need to cut that out and just go with the most able trained actors in the business. — Peter O'Toole

The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers, under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are.And, of course, so much force is withdrawn from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us. — Ralph Waldo Emerson