40 Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes on Life

Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes on life

39. You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both.

48. The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution.

62. The soul is subject to dollars.

66. Character is higher than intellect...A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.

73. It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, - 'Always do what you are afraid to do.'

77. There is properly no history; only biography.

95. Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues. Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world, - as invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.

100. Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim

112. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good.

114. For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something.

129. Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes itself whilst we are preparing to live.

144. The Indian who was laid under a curse, that the wind should not blow on him, nor water flow to him, nor fire burn him, is a type of us all. The dearest events are summer-rain, and we the Para coats that shed every drop. Nothing is left us now but death. We look to that with a grim satisfaction, saying, there at least is reality that will not dodge us.

146. We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can.

149. Of what use is genius, if the organ is too convex or too concave and cannot find a focal distance within the actual horizon of human life?

150. Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate, - and meantime it is only puss and her tail. How long before our masquerade will end its noise of tambourines, laughter, and shouting, and we shall find it was a solitary performance?

157. Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home: Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.

166. Life is too short to waste The critic bite or cynic bark, Quarrel, or reprimand; 'Twill soon be dark; Up! mind thine own aim, and God speed the mark!

168. But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together To make up a year, And a sphere.

170. Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for Being.

172. For nature beats in perfect tune, And rounds with rhyme her every rune, Whether she work in land or sea, Or hide underground her alchemy. Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, Or dip thy paddle in the lake, But it carves the bow of beauty there, And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake.

204. I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred. I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant.

206. Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.

207. Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

215. God said, I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more; Up to my ear the morning brings The outrage of the poor.

224. He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread.

225. Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.

226. Deep in the man sits fast his fate To mould his fortunes, mean or great.

228. Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.

229. It is time to be old, To take in sail: - The god of bounds, Who sets to seas a shore, Came to me in his fatal rounds, And said: 'No more!

230. Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime.

232. For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?

233. If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again.

245. The days .... come and go like muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party; but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.

253. Hitch your wagon to a star.

255. Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun.

284. To live without duties is obscene.

295. My life is not an apology, but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle.

307. Be silly, be honest, be kind.

309. To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

310. As soon as there is life there is danger.