Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of America’s most prominent writers and intellectuals of the nineteenth century.
Personal Details:
Date of Birth: May 25, 1803
Place of Birth: Boston, Massachusetts
Father: Rev. William Emerson
Mother: Ruth Haskins
Spouse(s): Ellen Louisa Tucker (m. 1829-her death in 1831), Lidian Jackson (m. 1835-his death in 1882)
Children: Waldo, Ellen, Edith, Edward Waldo
Career: Philosopher, Lecturer, Essayist, Poet
Death: April 27, 1882
Place of Death: Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.
Short Biography
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a well-known poet, lecturer, and essayist who was a key role in Transcendentalism, an American literary, philosophical, and religious movement. The primary attributes that surrounded Emerson’s works of literature and essays were power, vitality, and inspiration. Emerson stressed the importance of a man’s independence in his first literary critical lecture, “Milton.” Similarly, this remarkable English poet was a strong supporter of civic, ecclesiastical, intellectual, and household liberty. Emerson had done enough to create avenues for the average man by fighting slavery, denying predestination, arguing for press freedom, and favouring the principle of divorce. Ralph Waldo Emerson is most known for his contributions to metaphysical, transcendental, and oriental philosophy.
70 Good Quotes of Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Knowledge is the antidote to fear.”
“Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.”
“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”
“Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
“Self-trust is the first secret of success.”
“The earth laughs in flowers.”
“A great man is always willing to be little.”
“Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.”
“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”
“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”
“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”
“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.”
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
“Life is a journey, not a destination.”
“It is not the length of life, but the depth.”
“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”
“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”
“You become what you think about all day long.”
“Character is higher than intellect… A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.”
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
“Every artist was first an amateur.”
“Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.”
“To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
“Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.”
“The ancestor of every action is a thought.”
“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.”
“As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.”
“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.”
“The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.”
“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”
“The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”
“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”
“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.”
“Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.”
“Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.”
“People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.”
“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”
“People destined to meet will do so, apparently by chance, at precisely the right moment.”
“One of the most beautiful compensations in life is that no person can help another without helping themselves.”
“Imagination is a very high sort of seeing.”
“Throw a stone into the stream and the ripples that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence.”
“Happy will the house be in which the relationships are formed from character.”
“Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.”
“We are always getting ready to live but never living.”
“We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.”
“What your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul’s emphasis is always right.”
“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.”
“We must be our own before we can be another’s.”
“Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.”
“Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.”
“Good men must not obey the laws too well.”
“Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances.”
“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.”
“The years teach much which the days never know.”
“Men love to wonder; that is the seed of science.”
“Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.”
“The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.”
“There is creative reading as well as creative writing.”
“Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.”
“He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.”
“Manners require time and nothing is more vulgar than haste.”
“We aim above the mark to hit the mark.”
“Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.”
“Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.”
“A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.”
“A man’s years should not be counted until he has something else to count.”
“All is riddle and the key to a riddle is another riddle.”
“The real and lasting victories are those of peace and not of war.”
The most selfish one-letter word… “I” Avoid it Avoid it.
The most satisfying two-letter word… ” WE” Use it
The most poisonous three- letter word… “EGO” Overcome it
The most used four-letter word… “LOVE” Value it Value it
The most pleasing five-letter word… ” SMILE” Keep it Keep it
The fastest spreading six-letter word… ” RUMOUR” Ignore it Ignore it
The hardest working seven-letter word… “SUCCESS” Achieve it
The most enviable eight-letter word… ” JEALOUSY” Distance yourself from it Distance yourself from it
The most powerful nine-letter word… “KNOWLEDGE” Acquire it
The most valued ten-letter word… “FRIENDSHIP” Maintain it Maintain it
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