Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: First Series (Emerson)

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Prudence." Essays: First Series. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1841.

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Current Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Prudence." The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Brooks Atkinson. Modern Library, 2000.

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Always do what you are afraid to do.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: First Series (Emerson)

Read Heroism at Project Gutenberg

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Heroism." Essays: First Series. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1841.

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Heroism." The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Brooks Atkinson. Modern Library, 2000.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Original Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "The American Scholar." Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College. 31 Aug. 1837, First Parish in Cambridge, Cambridge, MA, USA.

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Current Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "The American Scholar (1837)." The Portable Emerson, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Penguin Classics, 2014.

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The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: First Series (Emerson)

Read Friendship at Project Gutenberg

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Original Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Friendship." Essays: First Series. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1841.

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Current Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Friendship." The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Brooks Atkinson. Modern Library, 2000.

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Come out of your warm, angular house, resounding with few voices, into the chill, grand, instantaneous night, with such a Presence as a full moon in the clouds.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Journal entry. 11 May 1838.

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Our chief want in life is, somebody who shall make us do what we can.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Considerations by the Way

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Original Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Considerations by the Way." The Conduct of Life. Boston: Ticknor & Fields/London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1860.

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Current Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Considerations by the Way." The Conduct of Life, edited by Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, and Douglas Emory Wilson. Vol. 6, Belknap Press, 2004.

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Men are what their mothers made them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fate

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Original Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Fate." The Conduct of Life. Boston: Ticknor & Fields/London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1860.

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Fate." The Conduct of Life, edited by Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, and Douglas Emory Wilson. Vol. 6, Belknap Press, 2004.

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If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The American Scholar

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Original Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "The American Scholar." Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College. 31 Aug. 1837, First Parish in Cambridge, Cambridge, MA, USA.

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Current Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "The American Scholar (1837)." The Portable Emerson, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Penguin Classics, 2014.

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Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, all flock to their aid.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Literary Ethics

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Literary Ethics." 24 July 1838, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.

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Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature

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Original Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1836, ch. 1.

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Current Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Nature." Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Library of America, 1983, ch. 1.

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Keep cool: it will be all one a hundred years hence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Montaigne; or, the Skeptic

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Read Representative Men at Project Gutenberg

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Montaigne; or, the Skeptic." Representative Men. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1850.

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Current Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Montaigne; or, the Skeptic (1850)." The Portable Emerson, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Penguin Classics, 2014.

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For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: Second Series (Emerson)

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The Poet.” Essays: Second Series. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1844.

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "The Poet (1844)." The Portable Emerson, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Penguin Classics, 2014.

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To fill the hour—that is happiness.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: Second Series (Emerson)

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Experience." Essays: Second Series. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1844.

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Experience (1844)." The Portable Emerson, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Penguin Classics, 2014.

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With the Past as past I have nothing to do, nor with the Future as future. I live now.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Journal entry. 18 Sept. 1839.

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A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: First Series (Emerson)

Read Friendship at Project Gutenberg

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Original Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Friendship." Essays: First Series. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1841.

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Current Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Friendship." The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Brooks Atkinson. Modern Library, 2000.

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Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: First Series (Emerson)

Read Circles at Project Gutenberg

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Original Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Circles." Essays: First Series. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1841.

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Current Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Circles (1841)." The Portable Emerson, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Penguin Classics, 2014.

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Thou art to me a delicious torment.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: First Series (Emerson)

Read Friendship at Project Gutenberg

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Original Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Friendship." Essays: First Series. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1841.

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Current Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Friendship." The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Brooks Atkinson. Modern Library, 2000.

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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: First Series (Emerson)

Buy Self-Reliance at Amazon Buy Self-Reliance at Amazon

Read Self-Reliance at Project Gutenberg

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Original Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Self-Reliance." Essays: First Series. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1841.

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Current Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Self-Reliance (1841)." The Portable Emerson, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Penguin Classics, 2014.

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The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Journal entry. 25 May 1843.

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We boil at different degrees.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Eloquence

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Original Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Eloquence." Society and Solitude. New York City: Fields, Osgood, & Co., 1870.

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Current Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Eloquence." The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and Solitude, edited by Ronald A. Bosco and Douglas Emory Wilson. Vol. 7, Belknap Press, 2008.

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