10 Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes on Power

Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes on power

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

56. Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.

101. Inasmuch as the soul is present, there will be power not confident but agent. To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather of that which relies, because it works and is. Who has more obedience than I masters me, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. We fancy it rhetoric, when we speak of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable to principles, by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities, nations, kings, rich men, poets, who are not. This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE. Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into all lower forms. All things real are so by so much virtue as they contain.

102. Power is in nature the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul.

131. Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

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.

251. There is no knowledge that is not power.

267. Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world. No hope so bright but is the beginning of its own fulfilment.

292. If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.

304. When you strike at a King, you must kill him.