"If the Stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile."

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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 offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please ..."
• "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 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 ..."