Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Art is a jealous mistress.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

We do not listen with best regard to the verses of a man who is only a poet, nor to his problems if he is only an algebraist; but if a man is at once acquainted with the geometric foundation of things and with their festal splendor, his poetry is exact and his arithmetic musical.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting--a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

The dice of God are always loaded.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing is rich but the inexhaustible wealth of nature. She shows us only surfaces, but she is a million fathoms deep.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Democracy becomes a government of bullies, tempered by editors.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders nobly mad.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

To be great is to be misunderstood.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man finds room in the few square inches of his face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Violence is not power, but the absence of power.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters to what lies within us.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson