Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Authority, Government

Politics and Diplomacy

Rating: 4.67 (Number of Voters: 3)

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Success and Fame

Work and Laziness

Rating: 7.00 (Number of Voters: 2)

"Guard your own spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Memory

Rating: 7.60 (Number of Voters: 5)

"The only way to have a friend is to be one."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friendship and Hostility

Rating: 5.50 (Number of Voters: 4)

"Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Journals"

Various

Rating: 6.00 (Number of Voters: 5)

"Live, let live, and help live."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life and Death

Rating: 9.25 (Number of Voters: 4)

"If we find a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Intellect, Judgement

Wisdom and Stupidity

Rating: 4.50 (Number of Voters: 4)

"We are always getting ready to live, but never living."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life and Death

Rating: 7.50 (Number of Voters: 2)

"Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Art and Culture

Science and Technology

Wisdom and Stupidity

Rating: 5.00 (Number of Voters: 4)

"Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "The Conduct of Life"

Human

Manners and Ethics

Rating: 6.00 (Number of Voters: 4)

"There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "The Conduct of Life"

Dreams and Desires

Reality and Imagination

Rating: 6.33 (Number of Voters: 3)

"God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "The Conduct of Life"

God and Religion

Rating: 5.25 (Number of Voters: 4)

"Sorrow makes us all children again, destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest knows nothing."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Journals"

Intellect, Judgement

Sorrow and Nostalgia

Rating: 9.50 (Number of Voters: 2)

"Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Journals"

Courage and Fear

Rating: 8.00 (Number of Voters: 4)

"Silence is a solvent that destroys personality, and gives us leave to be great and universal."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Essays, First Series"

Oration and Silence

Rating: 5.33 (Number of Voters: 3)

"Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Essays, Second Series"

Richness and Money

Rating: 6.80 (Number of Voters: 5)

"A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the notion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary but every thing hath affinities infinite."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Journals"

Human

Rating: 8.00 (Number of Voters: 1)

"To be great is to be misunderstood."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Essays, First Series"

Success and Fame

Various

Rating: 4.20 (Number of Voters: 5)

"Life itself is a bubble and a skepticism, and a sleep within sleep."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Essays, Second Series"

Life and Death

Reality and Imagination

Rating: 4.00 (Number of Voters: 3)

"A man's fortunes are the fruit of his character. A man's friends are his magnetisms."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "The Conduct of Life"

Friendship and Hostility

Human

Rating: 2.67 (Number of Voters: 3)

"Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Essays, First Series"

Friendship and Hostility

Rating: 3.60 (Number of Voters: 5)

"When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Journals"

Good and Evil

Patriotism

Rating: 5.50 (Number of Voters: 2)

"Some play at chess, some at cards, some at the Stock Exchange. I prefer to play at Cause and Effect."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson"

Various

Rating: 3.00 (Number of Voters: 2)

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Courage and Fear

Talent and Genius

Work and Laziness

Rating: 5.00 (Number of Voters: 3)

"Cause and effect, the chancellors of God."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Essays"

Destiny and Fate

Rating: 2.00 (Number of Voters: 1)

"All diseases run into one: old age."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Health and Alcohol

Youth and Age

Rating: 3.80 (Number of Voters: 5)

"Common sense is genius dressed up in work clothes."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Intellect, Judgement

Talent and Genius

Rating: 4.33 (Number of Voters: 3)

"All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

God and Religion

Rating: 5.33 (Number of Voters: 3)

"Never try to make anyone like yourself. You know, and God knows, that one of you is enough."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Human

Rating: 3.67 (Number of Voters: 3)

"Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances. Strong men believe in cause and effect."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Conduct of Life"

Power and Weakness

Rating: 6.75 (Number of Voters: 4)

"Cause and effect are two sides of one fact."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Various

Rating: 2.50 (Number of Voters: 2)

"A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Essays: First Series"

Friendship and Hostility

Rating: 8.83 (Number of Voters: 6)

"Literature is the effort of man to indemnify himself for the wrongs of his condition."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Art and Culture

Rating: 2.75 (Number of Voters: 4)

"Poetry must be new as foam, and as old as the rock."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Art and Culture

Rating: 4.20 (Number of Voters: 5)

"The sky is the daily bread of the eyes."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature and Animals

Rating: 5.60 (Number of Voters: 5)

"Men are what their mothers made them."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "The Conduct of Life"

Family and Loneliness

Woman and Man

Rating: 5.00 (Number of Voters: 2)

"Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trust

Rating: 5.25 (Number of Voters: 4)

"There are two classes of poets: the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Art and Culture

Rating: 1.67 (Number of Voters: 3)

"Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Truth and Falsity

Rating: 4.40 (Number of Voters: 5)

"A man is made by the books he reads."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Education

Rating: 7.80 (Number of Voters: 5)

"Art is a jealous mistress."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "The Conduct of Life"

Art and Culture

Rating: 1.33 (Number of Voters: 3)

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Joy and Sadness

Power and Weakness

Rating: 4.33 (Number of Voters: 3)

"A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Courage and Fear

Rating: 7.80 (Number of Voters: 5)

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature and Animals

Rating: 6.50 (Number of Voters: 2)

"Alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine are weak dilutions. The surest poison is time."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Letters and Social Aims"

Health and Alcohol

Rating: 7.33 (Number of Voters: 3)

"There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Lectures and Biographical Sketches"

Knowledge, Ignorance

Wisdom and Stupidity

Rating: 8.00 (Number of Voters: 2)

"The imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Letters and Social Aims"

Reality and Imagination

Rating: 6.50 (Number of Voters: 4)

"A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Society and Solitude"

Work and Laziness

Rating: 4.67 (Number of Voters: 3)