Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes on God
Ralph Waldo Emerson approached God less through doctrine than through the individual soul and the natural world, and the quotes gathered here reflect that Transcendentalist outlook. Having resigned his Unitarian ministry over matters of doctrine, Emerson came to identify the divine with an inward principle: self-reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God, so that trusting the self and trusting God are, for him, one act. He held that natural religion supplies still all the facts which are disguised under the dogma of popular creeds, and that religion advances steadily to its identity with morals. In his later poetry he also acknowledged the limits set on a human life, in the figure of the god of bounds who finally says no more. These passages present God as encountered in conscience, nature, and the moral life rather than in inherited creed.
Quotes
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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) -
“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 -
“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 -
“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 -
“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