Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets.

He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul.

Drawn by its severe harmony,

ravished with its beauty,

he lived in it and had his being there.

Alone in all history,

he estimated the greatness of man.

In every society some,

men are born to rule,

and some to advise.

The method of nature

who could ever analyze it?

Genius always finds itself a century too early.

A great part of courage is

the courage of having done the thing before.

With the past,

I have nothing to do;

nor with the future.

I live now.

Nature is a mutable cloud

which is always and never the same.

For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.

Manners require time,

and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

Words are also actions,

and actions are a kind of words.

Every particular in nature,

a leaf,

a drop,

a crystal,

a moment of time is related to the whole,

and partakes of the perfection of the whole.

No change of circumstances

can repair a defect of character.

America is a poem in our eyes;

its ample geography dazzles the imagination,

and it will not wait long for metres.

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

Every book is a quotation;

and every house is a quotation out of all forests,

and mines,

and stone quarries;

and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

Trust your instinct to the end,

though you can render no reason.

Build a better mousetrap

and the world will beat a path to your door.

Money often costs too much.

Every spirit makes its house,

and we can give a shrewd guess,

from the house to the inhabitant.