Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

What is a weed?

A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

Who hears me,

who understands me,

becomes mine,

a possession for all time.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,

adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

The vegetable life does not content

itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single seed,

but it fills the air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, that,

if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves,

that hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity;

that, at least one may replace the parent.

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions.

All life is an experiment.

Wisdom has its root in goodness,

not goodness its root in wisdom.

Judge of your natural character

by what you do in your dreams.

Every experiment,

by multitudes or by individuals,

that has a sensual and selfish aim,

will fail.

We are rich only through what we give,

and poor only through what we refuse.

One must be an inventor to read well.

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.

The search after the great men is the dream of youth,

and the most serious occupation of manhood.

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world

is also a confession of character.

He who is not everyday conquering

some fear has not learned the secret of life.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

The world is all gates,

all opportunities,

strings of tension waiting to be struck.

Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental

and individual symbol for an universal one.

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort,

and without it nothing great was ever achieved.

Men are what their mothers made them.

Before we acquire great power

we must acquire wisdom to use it well.