All Time Famous Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), an influential American essayist and philosopher, was a key figure in the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Emerson emphasized individualism, self-reliance, and the inherent goodness of people and nature. His renowned essays, including “Self-Reliance” and “Nature,” explored the interconnectedness of humanity, the divine, and the natural world. A proponent of nonconformity, Emerson encouraged individuals to trust their instincts and pursue their own paths. His concept of the “Oversoul” reflected a belief in a universal spirit connecting all living things. Emerson’s ideas significantly shaped American literature and philosophy, leaving a lasting legacy that continues to influence thinkers and writers today.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

1. “Life is a journey, not a destination.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

2. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

4. “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. “Always do what you are afraid to do.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

6. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

7. “Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

8. “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

9. “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

10. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

11. “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

12. “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

13. “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

14. “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

15. “Every artist was first an amateur.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

16. “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

17. “Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

18. “It is not the length of life, but the depth.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

19. “I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

20. “The earth laughs in flowers.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

21. “Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

22. “Self-trust is the first secret of success.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

23. “The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

24. “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

25. “Its the not the destination, it’s the journey.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

26. “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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

29. “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to leave the world a better place, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

30. “Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

31. “God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

32. “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

33. “Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

34. “God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. Always, always, always, always, always do what you are afraid to do. Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

35. “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

36. “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

37. “Do the thing and you will have the power.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

38. “In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

39. “That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

40. “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

41. “It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

42. “People only see what they are prepared to see.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

43. “Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

44. “He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

45. “Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

46. “All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

47. “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

48. “To be great is to be misunderstood.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

49. “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

50. “People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

51. “Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

52. “The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

53. “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

54. “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

55. “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

56. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

57. “When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, your’re the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

58. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

59. “Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

60. “Envy is ignorance, Imitation is Suicide.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

61. “Beware what you set your heart upon. For it surely shall be yours.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

62. “The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means to an education.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

63. “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

64. “Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

65. “When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

66. “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

67. “The first wealth is health.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

68. “If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

69. “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

70. “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

71. “Fear always springs from ignorance.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

72. “We are always getting ready to live but never living.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

73. “The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

74. “Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

75. “A house is made with walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

76. “Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

77. “Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

78. “It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

79. “Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

81. “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

82. “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

83. “The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

84. “Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

85. “Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

86. “The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

87. “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

88. “Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

89. “Scatter joy!”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

90. “Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

91. “Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

92. “We acquire the strength we have overcome.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

93. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

94. “Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

95. “Beauty without expression is boring.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

96. “All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

97. “Knowledge is when you learn something new every day. Wisdom is when you let something go every day.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

98. “Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

99. “Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

100. “All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

101. “If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

102. “We aim above the mark to hit the mark.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

103. “Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

104. “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

105. “When you strike at a king, you must kill him.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

106. “You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

107. “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

108. “Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

109. “The years teach much the days never know.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

110. “The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

111. “Live well, learn plenty, laugh often, love much.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

112. “Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

113. “He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

114. “His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

115. “Lose yourself in nature and find peace.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

116. “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.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

117. “A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

118. “The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

119. “Noblesse oblige; or, superior advantages bind you to larger generosity.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

120. “The task ahead of us is never as great as the power behind us.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

121. “The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

122. “Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. We’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

123. “The world belongs to the energetic.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

124. “We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

125. “The only thing that can grow is the thing you give energy to.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

126. “Truth, and goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same All.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

127. “As a man thinketh, so is he, and as a man chooseth, so is he.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

128. “Patience and fortitude conquer all things.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

129. “Live, let live, and help live.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

130. “Every great institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man. His character determines the character of the organization.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

131. “A man becomes what he thinks about most of the time.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

132. “In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

133. “If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

134. “All life is an experiment.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

135. “In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

136. “How much of human life is lost in waiting.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

137. “The reward of a thing well done is having done it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

138. “The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

140. “Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

141. “Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

142. “People destined to meet will do so, apparently by chance, at precisely the right moment.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

143. “Don’t choose the better person, choose the person who makes a better you.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

144. “For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

145. “Stand guard at the portal of your mind.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

146. “Cultivate an attitude of gratitude, of giving and forgiving. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

147. “Self reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

148. “Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

149. “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

150. “Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

151. “Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

152. “Every wall is a door.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

154. “Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed. When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work but the solidest things we know.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

155. “Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

156. “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

157. “If you want to be great and successful, choose people who are great and successful and walk side by side with them.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

158. “It’s a luxury to be understood.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

159. “Be a gift and a benediction.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

160. “All great successes are the triumph of persistence.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

161. “If I am the devil’s child, I will live then, by the devil.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

162. “Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. The mind does not create what it perceives, anymore than the eye creates the rose.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

163. “A man is known by the books he reads.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

164. “Not in his goals but in his transitions, man is great.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

165. “The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

166. “Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

167. “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

168. “When there is no vision, people perish.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

169. “Nothing external to you has any power over you.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

170. “We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

171. “It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘always do what you are afraid to do.’”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

172. “The secret is the answer to all that has been, all that is, and all that will ever be.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

173. “If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

174. “Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

175. “Our strength grows out of our weakness.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

176. “Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

177. “Self-trust is the first secret of success, the belief that if you are here the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause, or with some task strictly appointed you in your constitution, and so long as you work at that you are well and successful.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

178. “Money often costs too much.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

179. “Perception is a mirror not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

180. “If you don’t ride in the rain, you don’t ride.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

181. “I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

182. “One idea lights a thousand candles.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

183. “Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

184. “Insist upon yourself. Be original.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

186. “To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

187. “Standing on the bare ground, – my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, – all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

188. “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

189. “Life is a festival only to the wise.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

190. “The language of the street is always strong.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

191. “I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

192. “Thoughts rule the world.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

193. “The Bhagavad-Gita is an empire of thought and in its philosophical teachings Krishna has all the attributes of the full-fledged montheistic deity and at the same time the attributes of the Upanisadic absolute.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

194. “When a man is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

195. “Skill to do comes of doing.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

196. “Each of us sees in others what we carry in our own hearts.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

197. “Why should the way I feel depend on the thoughts in someone else’s head?”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

198. “Plant your DREAMS and miracles will grow.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

199. “The ancestor of every action is a thought.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

200. “Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

201. “Culture opens the sense of beauty.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

202. “Strong men greet war, tempest, hard times. They wish, as Pindar said, to tread the floors of hell, with necessities as hard as iron.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

203. “We must be our own before we can be another’s.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

204. “We walk alone in the world. Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

205. “So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

206. “Don’t waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

207. “Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

208. “In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

209. “Hitch your wagon to a star.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

210. “If you know you are right, stay the course even though the whole world seems to be against you and everyone you know questions your judgment. When you prevail – and you eventually will if you stick to the job – they will all tell you that they knew all along you could do it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

211. “Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

212. “Every great achievement is the victory of a flaming heart.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

213. “Desire is possibility seeking expression.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

214. “Luck is just another word for tenacity of purpose.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

215. “What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

216. “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.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

217. “Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

218. “Wherever a man commits a crime, God finds a witness. Every secret crime has its reporter.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

219. “He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

220. “In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

221. “Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

222. “Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

223. “Allow yourself to trust joy and embrace it. You will find you dance with everything.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

224. “I didn’t find my friends; the good Lord gave them to me.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

225. “The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

226. “For the resolute and determined, there is time and opportunity.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

227. “A man in debt is so far a slave.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

228. “But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

229. “Life must be lived on a higher plane. We must go up to a higher platform, to which we are always invited to ascend; there, the whole aspect of things changes.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

230. “The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

231. “Don’t ever give up on something or someone that you can’t go a full day without thinking about.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

232. “There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

233. “Moderation in all things, especially moderation.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

234. “The sky is the ultimate art gallery just above us.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

235. “People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

236. “The library is the worst group of people ever assembled in history. They’re mean, conniving, rude, and extremely well-read, which makes them dangerous.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

237. “Men are what their mothers made them.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

238. “The young man reveres men of genius, because, to speak truly, they are more himself than he is.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

239. “The ocean is a large drop; a drop is a small ocean.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

240. “Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force – that thoughts rule the world.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

241. “Some books leave us free and some books make us free.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

242. “We boil at different degrees.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

243. “We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

244. “Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

245. “The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

246. “Be an opener of doors.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

247. “Do your thing, and I shall know you.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

248. “Every man I meet is in some way my superior.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

249. “We learn geology the morning after the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, upheaved plains, and the dry bed of the sea.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

250. “Life is March weather, savage and serene in one hour.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

251. “In order for one to learn the important lessons of life, one must first overcome a fear each day.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

252. “There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word…”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

253. “You cannot kindle a fire in any other heart until it is burning in your own.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

254. “The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

255. “The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

256. “Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

257. “Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

258. “Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself. Be true to the highest within your soul and then allow yourself to be governed by no customs or conventionaliti es or arbitrary man-made rules that are not founded on principle.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

259. “Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

260. “What is the hardest task in the world? To think.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

261. “The primary wisdom is intuition. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their origin.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

262. “Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

263. “Money is of no value; it cannot spend itself. All depends on the skill of the spender.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

264. “Commerce is a game of skill which everyone cannot play and few can play well.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

265. “The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not need plenty, and can very well abide its loss.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

266. “As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

267. “There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

268. “Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

269. “A man is a god in ruins.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

270. “The masses have no habit of self-reliance or original action.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

271. “When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

272. “Dare to love God without mediator or veil.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

273. “A man in pursuit of greatness feels no little wants.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

274. “The dice of God are always loaded.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

275. “For it is only the finite that has wrought and suffered; the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

276. “Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: it was somebody’s name, or he happened to be there at right time, or it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

277. “Freedom is not the right to live as we please, but the right to find how we ought to live in order to fulfill our potential.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

278. “No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby – so helpless and so ridiculous.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

279. “The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

280. “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no person can sincerely try to help another without helping him or herself. Serve and you shall be served. If you love and serve people, you cannot, by any hiding or stratagem, escape the remuneration.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

281. “Travel is a fools paradise.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

282. “Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

283. “We walk alone in the world.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

284. “A friend is the hope of the heart.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

285. “Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

286. “Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

287. “By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little, you gain the great.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

288. “Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

289. “Self sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

290. “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

291. “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

292. “That which dominates our imagination and our thoughts will determine our life and character.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

293. “The sun shines today also.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

294. “Common sense is as rare as genius.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

295. “Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

296. “Nature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

297. “The force of character is cumulative.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

298. “Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold it’s great proportions.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

299. “A day is a miniature eternity.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

300. “The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson