Ralph Waldo Emerson Philosophical Quotes

Essayist, Philosopher, Poet

Philosophical

“Whenever a mind is simple and receives an old wisdom, old things pass away,--means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it,--one as much as another.”

Fall Teacher Future

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essayist, Philosopher, Poet

Philosophical

“Thought is the seed of action; but action is as much its second form as thought is its first.”

Thinking Firsts Thoughtful

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Philosophical

“He in whom the love of truth predominates . . . submits to the inconvenience of suspense and imperfect opinion; but he is a candidate for truth . . . and respects the highest law of his being.”

Love Law Imperfection

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Philosophical

“The sea is masculine, the type of active strength. Look, what egg-shells are drifting all over it, each one, like ours, filled with men in ecstasies of terror, alternating with cockney conceit, as the sea is rough or smooth. Is this sad-colored circle an eternal cemetery?”

Men Sea Circles

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Philosophical

“Where is he who seeing a thousand men useless and unhappy, and making the whole region forlorn by their inaction, and conscious himself of possessing the faculty they want, does not hear his call to go and be their king?”

Men Kings Leadership

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Philosophical

“The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible.”

Stars Certain Astronomy

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Philosophical

“We are as much strangers in nature, as we are aliens from God. We do not understand the notes of birds. The fox and the deer run away from us; the bear and tiger rend us. We do not know the uses of more than a few plants, as corn and the apple, the potato and the vine. Is not the landscape, every glimpse of which hath a grandeur, a face of him?”

Running Bird Apples

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Philosophical

“Exaggeration is in the course of things. Nature sends no creature, no man into the world, without adding a small excess of his proper quality. Given the planet, it is still necessary to add the impulse; so, to every creature nature added a little violence of direction in its proper path, a shove to put it on its way; in every instance, a slight generosity, a drop too much.”

Men Generosity Exaggeration Is

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Philosophical

“Everything teaches transition, transference, metamorphosis: therein is human power, in transference, not in creation; & therein is human destiny, not in longevity but in removal. We dive & reappear in new places.”

Destiny Transition Metamorphosis

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Philosophical

“To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism... It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will.”

Attitude Military Hero

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Philosophical

“When God lets loose a great thinker on this planet, then all things are at risk. There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; nor any literary reputation or the so-called eternal names of fame that many not be refused and condemned.”

Names Risk Pieces

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Philosophical

“Tis a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration.”

Manners Exaggeration Exaggerating

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Ralph Waldo Emerson — Philosophical Quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes