Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement. This “Sage of Concord, Massachusetts” wrote Self-Reliance (1841) and other critical essays that have since achieved the status of holy writ.

Born in Boston, Emerson was deeply influenced by his aunt, Mary Moody Emerson. Even though she was not formally educated, she was talented and was widely read. She introduced Emerson to diverse philosophies and spiritual values—including the Hindu scriptures that he would revisit in his later years. It was Aunt Mary that motivated many of Emerson’s famous aphorisms, “Always do what you are afraid to do,” and “Despise trifles,” and “Oh, blessed, blessed poverty.”

Emerson got into Harvard at 14. There, he began keeping journals, which he called his “savings bank.” Later in life, he suggested this practice to his friend and protégé, the philosopher and naturalist, Henry David Thoreau.

Emerson was an average student and graduated in the middle of his Harvard Divinity School class. In the tradition of many family members before him, he became a Unitarian minister. However, in 1832, after his wife Ellen died of tuberculosis at the age of 19, he was deeply distressed and started to have misgivings about the teachings of the church.

Emerson toured Europe in 1833 and became a protégé of the Scottish philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle. After returning to America, he embarked on an exceptional literary career. In his book Nature (1836,) Emerson first introduced Transcendentalism, the idea that spiritual truth could be gained by intuition rather than by traditional doctrine or text.

Emerson was also a wisdom writer and an acclaimed public lecturer. Many of his essays began as journal entries, then developed into lectures, and later refined for publication. He gave some 1,500 speeches in his lifetime about not only his philosophical tenets but also individuality and freedom.

Emerson’s essays and lectures had a profound influence on the philosophers, authors, and poets who came after him. Most prominently, his beliefs and his idealism were strong influences on the works of Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, as well as numerous others. His writings are considered masterpieces of 19th-century American literature, religion, and thought.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Thought, Act, Win, New, Thoughts

There is a tendency for things to right themselves.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Action

Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Miscellaneous, Slavery

Manners make the fortune of the ambitious youth.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Youth

Valor consists in the power of self recovery.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Bravery, Valor

The people are to be taken in small doses.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: People

Our best thoughts come from others.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Quotations

Will is the measure of power. To a great genius there must be a great will. If the thought is not a lamp to the will, does not proceed to an act, the wise are imbecile. He alone is strong and happy who has a will. The rest are herds. He uses; they are used. He is of the Maker; they are of the Made. Will is always miraculous, being the presence of God to men. When it appears in a man he is a hero, and all metaphysics are at fault.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fear always springs from ignorance.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Fear, Ignorance

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Honor

The problem of restoring to the world original and eternal beauty is solved by the redemption of the soul.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Soul

Good nature is stronger than tomahawks.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

We must set up a strong present tense against all rumors of wrath, past and to come.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Gossip

Greatness once and forever has down with opinion.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Greatness, Great

The pest of society are the egotist, they are dull and bright, sacred and profane, course and fine. It is a disease that like the flu falls on all constitutions.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Ego, Egotism

God had infinite time to give us … He cut it up into a near succession of new mornings, and, with each, therefore, a new idea, new inventions, and new applications.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Morning

The first thing a great person does, is make us realize the insignificance of circumstance.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Leadership, Leaders

The sanity of society is a balance of a thousand insanities.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Insanity

Those who live to the future must always appear selfish to those who live to the present.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Selfishness, Present, The Present, Future

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Science, Religion

Fame is proof that people are gullible.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Fame

The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it… “Beware of me,” it says, “but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Drugs

Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, “If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Vanity, Conceit

Insist on yourself; never imitate.
Your own gift you can present every moment with
the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation;
but of the adopted talent of another you have
only an extemporaneous half possession…
do that which is assigned to you,
and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Duty

A man’s years should not be counted until he has something else to count.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Aging

We boil at different degrees.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Anger

Reading should be in proportion to thinking, and thinking in proportion to reading.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Reading

The difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward; in talent from without inward.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Genius

In failing circumstances no one can be relied on to keep their integrity.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Topics: Integrity

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