Inspirational Quotations by Ralph Waldo Emerson
- It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid
with them.
- Sorrow looks back
Worry looks around
Faith looks up.
- No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.
- Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect,
still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.
- He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
- The only way to have a friend is to be one
- What lies behind us and what lies before us
are small matters compared to what lies within us.
- Bad times have a scientific value.
These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
- Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
- They can conquer who believe they can.
He has not learned the first lesson in life
who does not every day surmount a fear.
- Unless you try to do something beyond what you
have already mastered, you will never grow.
- The reward of a thing well done is having done it.
- The man who makes a mistake and does not
correct it, thereby makes another mistake.
- He who is not everyday conquering
some fear has not learned the secret of life.
- Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
- Guard well your spare moments.
They are like uncut diamonds.
Discard them and their value will never be known.
Improve them and they will become
the brightest gems in a useful life.
- For every minute of anger,
You lose sixty seconds of happiness.
- Nothing is at last sacred but
the integrity of your own mind.
- To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children...
to leave the world a better place...
to know even one life has breathed easier because
you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
- Be active, be energetic,
be enthusiastic and faithful,
and you will accomplish your objective.
- Let your enthusiasm radiate in your voice,
your actions, your facial expressions,
your personality, the words you use,
and the thoughts you think!
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
- Do not go where the path may lead,
go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
- Every great and commanding
movement in the annals of the world
is the triumph of enthusiasm.
Nothing great was ever achieved without it.
- A hero is no braver than an ordinary man,
but he is braver five minutes longer.
- Nature arms each man with some faculty which
enables hium to do easily some feat impossible to any other.
- War educates the senses,
calls into action the will,
perfects the physical constitution,
brings men into such swift and close collision
in critical moments that man measures man.
- Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so.
All action is of infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being
inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses the sun and moon.
- It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that
no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
- Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.
- Do not waste yourself in rejection,
nor bark against the bad,
but chant the beauty of the good.
- The reason why all men honor love is because it looks up,
and not down; aspires and not despairs.
- Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.
- Make yourself necessary to somebody.
- To be yourself in a world, that is constantly trying to
make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
- Character is higher than intellect...
A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.
- In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts:
they come back to us with certain alienated majesty.
- For every minute you remain angry,
you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.
- Light is the first of painters.
There is no object so foul that intense
light will not make it beautiful.
- Fate is nothing but the deeds committed
in a prior state of existence.
- The years teach what the days never know.
- The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand,
nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship;
it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when
he discovers that someone else believes in him
and is willing to trust him with his friendship.
- A good intention clothes itself with power.
- Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-
power of the understanding.
- Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.
- Anger is that powerful internal force that blows out the light of reason.
- Every man I meet is in some way my superior. In that I learn of him.
- 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 much in retrospect, that the amount of each person's genius is confined to a very few hours.
- We change, whether we like it or not.
- The world looks like a mathematical equation which, turn it how you will, balances itself. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty.
- Every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.
- That which we persist in doing becomes easier - not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased.
- I see it only that thyself is here, and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels and the supreme being shall not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest.
- There are geniuses in trade as well as in war, or the state, or letters; and the reason why this or that man is fortunate is not to be told. It lies in the man: that is all anybody can tell you about it.
- Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow.