Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a 19th-century American essayist, lecturer, and poet, the leading figure of the Transcendentalist movement in New England. His 1841 collection Essays: First Series, including the famous Self-Reliance, articulated a distinctively American philosophy of individualism, self-trust, and openness to nature as a source of spiritual insight. The quotes below are attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, organized by topic.
Browse Ralph Waldo Emerson by topic
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Freedom
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Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.”
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“The Fugitive Slave Law , a lecture in NYC (March 7, 1854)”
Self-reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God. -
“I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom.”
Journals (1822–1863) | June 27, 1839
Ralph Waldo Emerson on God
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“Self-reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God.”
The Fugitive Slave Law , a lecture in NYC (March 7, 1854) -
“It is time to be old, To take in sail: — The god of bounds, Who sets to seas a shore, Came to me in his fatal rounds, And said: 'No more!”
May-Day and Other Pieces(1867) | Terminus -
“God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.”
Society and Solitude(1870) | Society and Solitude -
“Natural religion supplies still all the facts which are disguised under the dogma of popular creeds. The progress of religion is steadily to its identity with morals.”
Pearls of Thought(1881) | p. 223
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Happiness
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Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Knowledge
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Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
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“I fancy I need more than another to speak (rather than write), with such a formidable tendency to the lapidary style. I build my house of boulders.”
Letter to Thomas Carlyle (30 October 1841) -
“Walter Savage Landor ", from The Dial , xii (1841)”
Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty. -
“Literature is the effort of man to indemnify himself for the wrongs of his condition.”
Walter Savage Landor", from The Dial , xii (1841) -
“Walter Savage Landor", from The Dial , xii (1841)”
Literature is the effort of man to indemnify himself for the wrongs of his condition. -
“Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth, his hall the azure dome.”
Poems(1847) | Wood-notes , st. 3 -
“It costs a beautiful person no exertion to paint her image on our eyes; yet how splendid is that benefit! It costs no more for a wise soul to convey his quality to other men.”
Representative Men(1850) | Uses of Great Men -
“If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again.”
May-Day and Other Pieces(1867) | Brahma , st. 1 Composed in July 1856 this poem is derived from a major passage of the Bhagavad Gita , one of the most popular of Hindu scriptures, and portions of it were likely a paraphrase of an exi -
“Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master at some point, and in that, I learn of him.”
Letters and Social Aims(1876) | Greatness -
“How we hate this solemn Ego that accompanies the learned, like a double, wherever he goes.”
Journals (1822–1863) | 1839 -
“Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.”
Journals (1822–1863) | May 1849 -
“The book written against fame and learning has the author's name on the title-page.”
Journals (1822–1863) | 1857
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Life
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“Hitch your wagon to a star.”
Civilization -
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
November 11, 1842 -
“Life is too short to waste The critic bite or cynic bark, Quarrel, or reprimand; 'Twill soon be dark; Up! mind thine own aim, and God speed the mark!”
Poems(1847) | To J. W. , st. 4 -
“Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent: All are needed by each one, Nothing is fair or good alone.”
Poems(1847) | Each and All , st. 1 -
“The cup of life is not so shallow That we have drained the best That all the wine at once we swallow And lees make all the rest.”
Journals (1822–1863) | 1827 -
“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
Journals (1822–1863) | November 11, 1842
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Love
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Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
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“He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.”
The Method of Nature (1841), p. 25 -
“Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty.”
Walter Savage Landor ", from The Dial , xii (1841) -
“Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay, Tho' her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive, Heartily know, When half-gods go, The gods arrive.”
Poems(1847) | Give All to Love , st. 4 -
“Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply, — "'T is man's perdition to be safe When for the truth he ought to die."”
May-Day and Other Pieces(1867) | Sacrifice -
“The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtesan.”
Journals (1822–1863) | February 12, 1851; cf. the remark of John Wilkes about Samuel Johnson , " Liberty is as ridiculous in his mouth as Religion in mine" (20 March 1778), quoted in Boswell 's Life of Johnson (1791) -
“A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs, The world uncertain comes and goes; The lover rooted stays.”
May-Day and Other Pieces(1867) | Friendship -
“Four snakes gliding up and down a hollow for no purpose that I could see — not to eat, not for love, but only gliding.”
Journals (1822–1863) | April 11, 1834
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Mind
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Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
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“Character is higher than intellect...A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.”
The American Scholar(1837) | par. 27 -
“I think no virtue goes with size; The reason of all cowardice Is, that men are overgrown, And, to be valiant, must come down To the titmouse dimension.”
May-Day and Other Pieces(1867) | The Titmouse , st. 5 -
“Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world. No hope so bright but is the beginning of its own fulfillment.”
Letters and Social Aims(1876) | Progress of Culture Phi Beta Kappa Address (July 18, 1867) -
“A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.”
Journals (1822–1863) | June 20, 1831 -
“We are, like Nebuchadnezzar, dethroned, bereft of reason, and eating grass like an ox.”
Nature(1836) | Prospects
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Nature
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“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”
Fortune of the Republic (1878) -
“Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun.”
Society and Solitude(1870) | Art -
“A masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant or a crystal.”
Society and Solitude(1870) | Art -
“I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.”
Society and Solitude(1870) | Books
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Politics
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“The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.”
The American Scholar(1837) | par. 5
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Virtue
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Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
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Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
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“Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, and no force of character can make any stand against good wit.”
Letters and Social Aims(1876) | The Comic
Things actually not said by Ralph Waldo Emerson
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Ralph Waldo Emerson but are in fact from someone else. Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say this? No.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Although universally attributed to Emerson, this line was written by Henry Stanley Haskins in his 1940 book Meditations in Wall Street. The misattribution to Emerson became widespread in the second half of the 20th century but no source for the line has ever been located in any of Emerson's published essays, addresses, journals, or correspondence.
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Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say this? No.
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Although widely circulated as Emerson, this line has not been located in any of his essays, addresses, journals, or letters. Researchers including Quote Investigator have traced the earliest verifiable English appearances to the 20th century. The actual author has not been identified.
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Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say this? No.
“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.”
Though attributed to Emerson in Edwards' A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), p. 37, this quote originates in Politics for the People (1848) by Charles Kingsley .
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Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say this? No.
“Variation : If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he builds his house in the woods the world will make a beaten path to his door.”
Investigations have failed to confirm this in Emerson's writings (John H. Lienhard. "A better moustrap" , Engines of our Ingenuity ). Also reported as a misattribution in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 25. Note that Emerson did say, as noted above, "I trust a good deal to common fame, as we all must. If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods".
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Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say this? No.
“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”
Widely attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson on the internet; however, a presumably definitive source of Emerson's works at http://www.rwe.org fails to confirm any occurrence of this phrase across his works. This phrase is found in remarks attributed to Charles A. Beard in Arthur H. Secord, "Condensed History Lesson", Reader's Digest , February 1941, p. 20; but the origin has not been determined. Possibly confused with a passage in "Illusions" in which Emerson discusses his experience in the "Star Chamber": "our lamps were taken from us by the guide, and extinguished or put aside, and, on looking upwards, I saw or seemed to see the night heaven thick with stars glimmering more or less brightly…
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Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say this? No.
“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”
Attributed to Emerson in The Gift of Depression: Twenty-one Inspirational Stories Sharing Experience, Strength, and Hope (2001) by John F. Brown, p. 56, no prior occurrence of this statement has been located; it seems to be derived from one which occurs in The Alchemist (1988) by Paulo Coelho , p. 22: When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
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Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say this? No.
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
Attributed to Emerson in Life's Instructions for Wisdom, Success, and Happiness (2000) by H. Jackson Brown Jr., as well as numerous online sources since, the article "The Purpose of Life Is Not To Be Happy But To Matter" at the Quote Investigator indicates that this quote is probably derived from various statements first made by Leo Rosten , including the following words delivered at the National Book Awards held in New York in 1962: "The purpose of life is not to be happy — but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all."
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Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say this? No.
“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
No known source in Emerson's works; first found as a piece of anonymous folk wisdom in a 1936 newspaper column:
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Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say this? No.
“No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing.”
Widely misattributed to Emerson on the Internet, this quote is actually taken from Alfred North Whitehead's essay "Harvard: The Future" (The Atlantic Monthly, September 1936.)
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Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say this? No.
“The next thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.”
This sentence has no known source in Emerson's works, but its general sense does closely match the tenor of Emerson's essay "Quotation and Originality", in particular the sentence "Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it." (listed above). Gow, Foundations for Human Engineering (1931) contains the following passage: "I have the backing of Emerson, for it was he, I believe, who said that the next thing to saying a good thing yourself, if to quote one". It is not clear whether Gow is purporting to quote Emerson verbatim , or merely to paraphrase his work. (Disputed.)
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Did Ralph Waldo Emerson say this? No.
“In order to learn the important lessons in life, one must each day surmount to fear.”
There are ongoing disputes on who should receive credit for this quote. The earliest match that could be found was in an article published by Los Angeles Times in 1936, which attributed the quote to Elbert Hubbard , but the evidence was weak as he died in 1915. In the following years, Dale Carnegie 's books and articles confusingly credited the saying to Hubbard, Napoleon Bonaparte , and Emerson; however, Carnegie did not present any supporting citations. Therefore, the originator of the quote remains unknown. Quote Origin: Fear Defeats More People than Any Other One Thing in the World by Quote Investigator (Disputed.)