Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes on Mind
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the leading voice of New England Transcendentalism, treated the mind as the seat of an original power that each person is called to trust. The quotes gathered here, many from the celebrated essay Self-Reliance, urge the reader to trust thyself and to resist the foolish consistency that Emerson called the hobgoblin of little minds. Yet he was careful not to equate the mind with mere intellect: character, he insisted, stands higher, and a great soul will be strong to live as well as strong to think. For Emerson the health of the mind lies in self-trust, openness, and original thought, the refusal to let tradition or convention do one's thinking, and several of his most quoted formulations on the subject are noted here as popularly attributed.
Quotes
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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:
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
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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.”
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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 -
“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 -
“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 -
“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 -
“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 -
“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