"God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please - you can never have both."

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More quotes from: Ralph Waldo Emerson

• "A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; it gives a higher pleasure than ..."
• "A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind ..."
• "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers ..."
• "A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. "
• "A good indignation brings out all one's powers. "
• "A great man is always willing to be little. "
• "A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before. "
• "A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes ..."
• "A man finds room in the few square inches of his face for the traits ..."
• "A man in debt is so far a slave. "
• "A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles. "
• "A man is what he thinks about all day long. "
• "A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends. "
• "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. "
• "All diseases run into one, old age. "
• "All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not ..."
• "All life is an experiment. "
• "All mankind love a lover. "
• "All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud, you have first an instinct, ..."
• "All sensible people are selfish, and nature is tugging at every contract to make the ..."
• "Always do what you are afraid to do. "
• "America is another name for opportunity. "
• "An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory. "
• "As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey. "
• "As soon as there is life there is danger. "
• "As we grow old, the beauty steals inward. "
• "Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss. "
• "Be an opener of doors. "
• "Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it ..."
• "Beauty without expression is boring. "
• "Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait. "
• "Between eighteen and twenty, life is like an exchange where one buys stocks, not with ..."
• "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. "
• "By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. "
• "Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's ..."
• "Cards were at first for benefits designed, sent to amuse, not to enslave the mind. "
• "Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well ..."
• "Children are all foreigners. "
• "Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these ..."
• "Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass. "
• "Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes. "
• "Concentration is the secret of strengths in politics, in war, in trade, in short in ..."
• "Culture is one thing and varnish is another. "
• "Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret. "
• "Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the ..."
• "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path ..."
• "Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain. "
• "Doing well is the result of doing good. That's what capitalism is all about. "
• "Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. "
• "Earth laughs in flowers. "
• "Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved. "
• "Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well. "
• "Every artist was first an amateur. "
• "Every burned book enlightens the world. "
• "Every great institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man. His character determines the ..."
• "Every hero becomes a bore at last. "
• "Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the ..."
• "Every man has his own vocation, talent is the call. "
• "Every man I meet is in some way my superior. "
• "Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors. "
• "Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated. "
• "Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both. "
• "Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. "
• "Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but ..."
• "Everybody keeps telling me how surprised they are with what I've done. But I'm telling ..."
• "Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden ..."
• "Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence. "
• "Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world. "
• "Fear is an instructor of great sagacity, and the herald of all revolutions. "
• "Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old ..."
• "Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures. "
• "Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others. "
• "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some ..."
• "Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of ..."
• "Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. "
• "For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. "
• "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind. "
• "Genius always finds itself a century too early. "
• "Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to ..."
• "God enters by a private door into every individual. "
• "God screens us evermore from premature ideas. "
• "Good men must not obey the laws too well. "
• "Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. "
• "Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events. "

• "He builded better than he knew; the conscious stone to beauty grew. "
• "He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, while he who ..."
• "He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life. "
• "Hitch your wagon to a star. "
• "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. "
• "I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it. "
• "I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. "
• "I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book ..."
• "If a man can... make a better mousetrap, the world will make a beaten path ..."
• "If the Stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe ..."
• "If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground. "
• "In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine. "
• "In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to ..."
• "In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed. "
• "In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with ..."
• "Intellect annuls Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free. "
• "Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the ..."
• "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion, it is easy ..."
• "It is not length of life, but depth of life. "
• "It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be ..."
• "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely ..."
• "It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'always do ..."
• "Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams. "
• "Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know. "
• "Let every man shovel out his own snow and the whole city will be passable. "
• "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever ..."
• "Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods. "
• "Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day. "
• "Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art. "
• "Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. "
• "Make yourself necessary to somebody. "
• "Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste. "
• "Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim. "
• "Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They ..."
• "Men are what their mothers made them. "
• "Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science. "
• "Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and ..."
• "Money is the representative of a certain quantity of corn or other commodity. It is ..."
• "Money often costs too much. "
• "Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors ..."
• "Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. "
• "Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. "
• "Nature hates calculators. "
• "Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same. "
• "New York is a sucked orange. "
• "Night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir tree. "
• "No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character. "
• "No great man ever complains of want of opportunity. "
• "No man ever prayed heartily without learning something. "
• "Nobody can bring you peace but yourself. "
• "None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to ..."
• "Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. "
• "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. "
• "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. "
• "One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well ..."
• "Our best thoughts come from others. "
• "Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we ..."
• "Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when ..."
• "Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we ..."
• "Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding. "
• "People only see what they are prepared to see. "
• "People that seem so glorious are all show; underneath they are like everyone else. "
• "People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never. "
• "Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit in every work of art. "
• "Pictures must not be too picturesque. "
• "Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in ..."
• "Reality is a sliding door. "
• "Revolutions go not backward. "
• "Science does not know its debt to imagination. "
• "Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. "
• "So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so ..."
• "Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense. "
• "Some books leave us free and some books make us free. "
• "Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis. "
• "The ancestor of every action is a thought. "
• "The art of getting rich consists not in industry, much less in saving, but in ..."
• "The believing we do something when we do nothing is the first illusion of tobacco. "
• "The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence. "
• "The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. "
• "The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. "
• "The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly ..."
• "The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom ..."
• "The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. "

• "The finest and noblest ground on which people can live is truth; the real with ..."
• "The first wealth is health. "
• "The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best ..."
• "The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile nor the ..."
• "The greatest gift is a portion of thyself. "
• "The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. "
• "The louder he talked of his honor the faster we counted our spoons. "
• "The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into ..."
• "The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers. "
• "The method of nature: who could ever analyze it? "
• "The miracles of genius always rest on profound convictions which refuse to be analyzed. "
• "The only way to have a friend is to be one. "
• "The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to ..."
• "The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war. "
• "The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom. "
• "The reward of a thing well done is having done it. "
• "The senses collect the surface facts of matter... It was sensation; when memory came, it ..."
• "The sky is the daily bread of the eyes. "
• "The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work. "
• "The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, ..."
• "The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservation and that of Innovation, ..."
• "The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society. "
• "The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain. "
• "The whole secret of the teacher's force lies in the conviction that man are convertible. "
• "The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more ..."
• "The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck. "
• "The years teach much which the days never knew. "
• "Then beauty is its own excuse for being. "
• "There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke ..."
• "There are two classes of poets - the poets by education and practice, these we ..."
• "There is a tendency for things to right themselves. "
• "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that ..."
• "There is creative reading as well as creative writing. "
• "There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him ..."
• "They can conquer who believe they can. He has not learned the first lesson in ..."
• "Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not ..."
• "Think, and be careful what thou art within; For there is sin in the desire ..."
• "This body, full of faults, Has yet one great quality: Whatever it encounters in this ..."
• "This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what ..."
• "Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good: ..."
• "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with ..."
• "Thoughts come into our minds by avenues which we never left open, and thoughts go ..."
• "To be great is to be misunderstood. "
• "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your ..."
• "To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to ..."
• "To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the ..."
• "To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, ..."
• "Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a ..."
• "Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will ..."
• "Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. "
• "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. "
• "Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. "
• "Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. "
• "Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men. "
• "Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never ..."
• "Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are. "
• "Washington, where an insignificant individual may trespass on a nation's time. "
• "We acquire the strength we have overcome. "
• "We aim above the mark to hit the mark. "
• "We are always getting ready to live but never living. "
• "We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse. "
• "We are symbols, and inhabit symbols. "
• "We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over ..."
• "We are wiser than we know. "
• "We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly ..."
• "We do what we must, and call it by the best names. "
• "We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too ..."
• "We gain the strength of the temptation we resist. "
• "We must be our own before we can be another's. "
• "What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered. "
• "What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a ..."
• "What you do speak so loudly that I cannot hear what you say. "
• "When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. "
• "When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it. "
• "When the eyes say one thing and the tongue another, the practiced person relies on ..."
• "When we quarrel, how we wish we had been blameless. "
• "Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying. "
• "Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for ..."
• "Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom. "
• "With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now. "
• "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. "
• "You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will ..."