Waldo Quotes & Sayings

Peace has its victories but it takes brave men to win them — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I like people who can do things — Ralph Waldo Emerson

For the Universe has three children, born at one time, which reappear under different names in every system of thought, whether they be called cause, operation and effect; or, more poetically, Jove, Pluto, Neptune; or, theologically, the Father, the Spirit and the Son; but which we will call here the Knower, the Doer and the Sayer. These stand respectively for the love of truth, for the love of good, and for the love of beauty. These three are equal. Each is that which he is, essentially, so that he cannot be surmounted or analyzed, and each of these three has the power of the others latent in him and his own, patent. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We shun the rugged battle of fate where strength is born. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Looking at God instantly reduces our disposition to dissent from our brother. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Preaching is the expression of the moral sentiment in application to the duties of life. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If government knew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply, the population. When it reaches its true law of action, every man that is born will be hailed as essential. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When a happy person comes into the room, it is as if another candle has been lit. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

All is a riddle, and the key to a riddle ... is another riddle. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dad said I would always be "high minded and low waged" from reading too much Ralph Waldo Emerson. Maybe he was right. — Jim Harrison

The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself and whatever science or art or course of action he engages in reacts upon and illuminates the recesses of his own mind. Thus friends seem to be only mirrors to draw out and explain to us ourselves; and that which draws us nearer our fellow man, is, that the deep Heart in one, answers the deep Heart in another,
that we find we have (a common Nature)
one life which runs through all individuals, and which is indeed Divine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The State is a poor, good beast who means the best: it means friendly. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organ of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing by ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Away with this hurrah of masses, and let us have the considerate vote of single men. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A garden has this advantage, that it makes it indifferent where you live. A well-laid garden makes the face of the country of no account; let that be low or high, grand or mean, you have made a beautiful abode worthy of man. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is a certain satisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground of politics, for we get rid of cant and hypocrisy. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough for literature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Five great enemies of peace inhabit us: avarice, ambition, envy, anger and pride. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Good bye, proud world! I'm going home; Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

So ... I feel in regard to this aged England ... pressed upon by transitions of trade and ... competing populations,-I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before;-indeed, with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that, in storm of battle and calamity, she has a secret vigor and a pulse like a cannon. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

What will you have? quoth God; pay for it, and take it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitants of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I behold a rich landscape, it is less to my purpose to recite correctly the order and superposition of the strata, than to know why all thought of multitude is lost in a tranquil sense of unity. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as two sides of an algebraic equation. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

England, an old and exhausted island, must one day be contented, like other parents, to be strong only in her children. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man is physically as well as metaphysically a thing of shreds and patches, borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors, and a misfit from the start. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Knowledge is the antidote to fear — Ralph Waldo Emerson

But in our experience, man is cheap and friendship wants its deep sense. We affect to dwell with our friends in their absence, but we do not; when deed, word, or letter comes not, they let us go. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is bad enough that our geniuses cannot do anything useful, but it is worse that no man is fit for society who has fine traits.He is admired at a distance, but he cannot come near without appearing a cripple. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The old men are as red as roses, and still handsome. A clear skin, a peach-bloom complexion, and good teeth are found all over the island. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature will not be Buddhist: she resents generalizing, and insults the philosopher in every moment with a million fresh particulars. — Ralph Waldo 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

Nature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the fruit of his character. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I walk up the piazza of Santa Croce I feel as if it were not a Florentine nor an European church but a church built by and for the human race. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

As the farmer casts into the ground the finest ears of his grain, the time will come when we too shall hold nothing back, but shall eagerly convert more than we now possess into means and powers, when we shall be willing to sow the sun and the moon for seeds. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The first lesson of history is that evil is good. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

All the facts of nature are nouns of the intellect, and make the grammar of the eternal language. Every word has a double, trebleor centuple use and meaning. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The the illuminated mind the whole world sparkles with light. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do you love me? Means at last do you see the same truth I see? If you do, we are happy together; but when presently one of us passes into the perception of a new truth, we are divorced and the force of all nature cannot hold us to each other. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the history of the individual is always an account of his condition, and he knows himself to be a party to his present estate. — 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

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Out from the heart of Nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The wise man, the true friend, the finished character, we seek everywhere, and only find in fragments. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We hear eagerly every thought and word quoted from an intellectual man. But in his presence our own mind is roused to activity, and we forget very fast what he says. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

All history is biography. — Ralph Waldo 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

Love, and you shall be loved. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The best nations are those most widely related; and navigation, as effecting a world-wide mixture, is the most potent advancer ofnations. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yourself a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost, cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

To Be is to live with God. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man is entitled to be valued by his best moment. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It happens to us once or twice in a lifetime to be drunk with some book which probably has some extraordinary relative power to intoxicate us and none other; and having exhausted that cup of enchantment we go groping in libraries all our years afterwards in the hope of being in Paradise again. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

What I need is someone who will make me do what I can. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

This whole business of Trade gives me to pause and think, as it constitutes false relations between men; inasmuch as I am prone tocount myself relieved of any responsibility to behave well and nobly to that person who I pay with money, whereas if I had not that commodity, I should be put on my good behavior in all companies, and man would be a benefactor to man, as being himself his only certificate that he had a right to those aids and services which each asked of the other. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

You become what you think about all day long. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is something in the universe that responds to brave, intrepid thought. The Power that holds and that moves the stars in their courses, fights for the brave and the upright. Courage has power and magic in it. — Ralph Waldo Trine

The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation: and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine; property and its cares, friends and a social habit, or politics, or music, or feasting. Everything is good which takes away one plaything and delusion more, and drives us home to add one stroke of faithful work. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The dearest events are summer-rain. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, — Ralph Waldo Emerson

To a physician, each man, each woman, is an amplification of one organ. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Accuracy is essential to beauty. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The highest Beauty should be plain set. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

An artist spends himself like the crayon in his hand, till he is all gone. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Age, like woman, requires fit surroundings. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The beautiful is never plentiful. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The finished man of the world must eat of every apple once. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Physical force has no value, where there is nothing else. Snow in snow-banks, fire in volcanoes and solfataras is cheap. The luxury of ice is in tropical countries, and midsummer days. The luxury of fire is, to have a little on our hearth; and of electricity, not the volleys of the charged cloud, but the manageable stream on the battery-wires. So of spirit, or energy; the rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the cannibals in the Pacific. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have lost my mental faculties but am perfectly well. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I DO not count the hours I spend In wandering by the sea; The forest is my loyal friend, Like God it useth me. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fame is proof that the people are gullible. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The sentiment of virtue is a reverence and delight in the presence of certain divine laws. It perceives that this homely game of life we play, covers, under what seem foolish details, principles that astonish. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

See only that thou work and thou canst not escape the reward. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A great man is always willing to be little. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not speak of God much. After a very little conversation on the highest nature, thought deserts us and we run into formalism. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Nothing great has ever been achieved without enthusiasm. — Carmine Gallo

And last of all, high over thought, in the world of morals, Fate appears as vindicator, levelling the high, lifting the low, requiring justice in man, and always striking soon or late when justice is not done. What is useful will last, what is hurtful will sink. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is the fault of our rhetoric that we cannot strongly state one fact without seeming to belie some other. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The city is always recruited from the country. The men in cities who are the centres of energy, the driving-wheels of trade, politics or practical arts, and the women of beauty and genius, are the children or grandchildren of farmers, and are spending the energies which their fathers' hardy, silent life accumulated in frosty furrows in poverty, necessity and darkness. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every natural power exhilarates; a true talent delights the possessor first. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When a man thinks happily, he finds no foot-track in the field he traverses. All spontaneous thought is irrespective of all else. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We take care of our health; we lay up money; we make our roof tight, and our clothing sufficient; but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting in the best property of all, -friends? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Time, which shows so vacant, indivisible, and divine in its coming, is slit and peddled into trifles and tatters. A door is to bepainted, a lock to be repaired. I want wood, or oil, or meal, or salt; the house smokes, or I have a headache; then the tax; and an affair to be transacted with a man without heart or brains; and the stinging recollection of an injurious or very awkward word,
these eat up the hours. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires, the desire of riches, of pleasure, of power, and of praise, - and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will, is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper currency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults. In — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We must have kings, we must have nobles; nature is always providing such in every society; only let us have the real instead of the titular. In every society some are born to rule, and some to advise. The chief is the chief all the world over, only not his cap and plume. It is only this dislike of the pretender which makes men sometimes unjust to the true and finished man. — Ralph Waldo Emerson