Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes, with sources

Leave this military hurry and adopt the pace of Nature. Her secret is patience.

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

Insist on yourself; never imitate.

Knowledge is the antidote to fear.

Self-trust is the essence of heroism.

Our strength grows out of our weakness.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

We are always getting ready to live, but never living.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

Money often costs too much.

Life is a series of surprises.

Every artist was first an amateur.

Character is higher than intellect.

Do your work, and I shall know you.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

The world globes itself in a drop of dew.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

A great man is always willing to be little.

Nothing is impossible to the man who can will.

Have the courage not to adopt another’s courage.

I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred.

The characteristic of heroism is its persistency.

Let us be silent,—so we may hear the whisper of the gods.

Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

The man that stands by himself, the universe stands by him also.

In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.

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

There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile.

The mind stretches an hour to a century, and dwarfs an age to an hour.

Imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.

God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions.

All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt.

Everything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight lines.

Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grew.

The light by which we see in this world comes out from the soul of the observer.

Do your work, respecting the excellence of the work, and not its acceptableness.

You must elect your work; you shall take what your brain can, and drop all the rest.

You can never do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.

Permanence is but a word of degrees.

Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands.

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.

It is enough if you work in the right direction.

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished.

The one serious and formidable thing in nature is a will.

The man of to-day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday.

The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

The sum of wisdom is, that the time is never lost that is devoted to work.

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.