Transcendent Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.

Nothing external to you has any power over you.

Every burned book enlightens the world.

Power and speed be hands and feet.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.

Getting old is a fascinating thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.

The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.

Every artist was first an amateur.

What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.

Preaching is the expression of the moral sentiment in application to the duties of life.

Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes.

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.

The highest revelation is that God is in every man.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

As soon as there is life there is danger.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.

America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination.

Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time.

We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.

We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

Make yourself necessary to somebody.

A good indignation brings out all one's powers.

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

The reward of a thing well done is having done it.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

The years teach much which the days never know.

Men are what their mothers made them.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

Pictures must not be too picturesque.

The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister is the suggestion of an occult relation.

In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.

Revolutions go not backward.

America is another name for opportunity.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

Our best thoughts come from others.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

We are always getting ready to live but never living.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom.

Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.

Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural.

The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.

Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

Beauty without expression is boring.

The first wealth is health.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

We must be our own before we can be another's.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force -- that thoughts rule the world.

What you are comes to you.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.