Big Ideas from The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Big Ideas” are simply the gems I’ve pulled out of my favorite books/seminars/life lessons. These ones I pulled from The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
PhilosophersNotes on The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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- Ralph Waldo Emerson: Good Luck
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: Beautiful Compensations
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature & Geniuses
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: Reaping a Destiny
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: Be Godlike!
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: Be Inconsistent
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: Cowards & God
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature's Compensation
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: Take Action!!
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature is Not Capricious
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: Enthusiasm
Quotes from The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson instructed us to "Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your reading have been to you like the blast of truimpth out of Shakespeare, Seneca, Moses, John and Paul."
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall...
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes from The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.
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And truly it demands something godlike in him who cast off the common motives of humanity and ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster.
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Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes from Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short in all management of human affairs.
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Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
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Envy is ignorance. Imitation is suicide.
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God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes from Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed!
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He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, while he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.
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If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.
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It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes from The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
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It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
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No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this. The only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it.
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Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
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Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your mind.
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Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
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People only see what they are prepared to see.
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People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
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Speak what you think today in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradicts everything you said today.
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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.
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The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.
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The only way to have a friend is to be one.
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The years teach us much the days never knew.
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Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
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To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men—that is genius.
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Trust thyself.
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We aim above the mark to hit the mark.
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What I need is someone who will make me do what I can.
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What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes from The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Whoso would ever be a man, must be a noncomformist.
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You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will become too late.
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Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
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It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
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Fear always springs from ignorance.
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There is no knowledge that is not power.
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Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.
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Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is due to the triumph of enthusiasm.
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The ancestor to every action is a thought.
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It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself… Serve and thou shall be served.
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To believe your own thoughts, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men--that is genius.
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The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defiant though he look he has a helm which he obeys, which is he idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.
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Great men are they who see that spirituality is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world.
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When God lets loose a great thinker on this planet, then all things are at risk. There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; nor any literary reputation or the so-called eternal names of fame that many not be refused and condemned.
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When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.
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There’s nothing capricious in nature, and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feels it.
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What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.
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For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure.
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it was a high counsel I once heard given to a young person, "Always do what you are afraid to do."
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The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
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Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.
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Every man should let out all the length of all the reigns; should find or make a frank and healthy expression of what force and meaning is in him.
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What your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul's emphasis is always right.
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For it is only the finite that has wrought and suffered; the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose.
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Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls.
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Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. This talent and this call depend on his organization, or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself in him. He inclines to do something which is easy to him, and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do somewhat unique, and no man has any other call. The pretence that he has another call, a summons by name and personal election and outward "signs that mark him extraordinary, and not in the roll of common men," is fanaticism, and betrays obtuseness to perceive that there is one mind in all the individuals, and no respect of persons therein.
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Genius appeals to the future.
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Fear is an instructor of great sagacity and the herald of revolutions. One thing he teaches, that there is rottenness where he appears.
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Our desires presage the capacities within us; they are harbingers of what we shall be able to accomplish. What we can do and want to do is projected in our imagination, quite outside ourselves, and into the future. We are attracted to what is already ours in secret. Thus passionate anticipation transforms what is indeed possible into dreamt-for reality.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes from Nature
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Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual's character. Now to no other man can its wisdom appear as it does to him, for every man must be supposed to see a little farther on his own proper path than any one else. Therefore just and wise men take umbrage at his act, until after some little time be past: then they see it to be in unison with their acts. All prudent men see that the action is clean contrary to a sensual prosperity; for every heroic act measures itself by its contempt of some external good. But it finds its own success at last, and then the prudent also extol.
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Self-trust is the essence of heroism
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Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right.
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To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism... It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will...
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When the spirit is not master of the world, then it is its dupe.
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The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness.
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The great will not condescend to take anything seriously.
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I see not any road of perfect peace which a man can walk but after the counsel of his own bosom.
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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.
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O friend, never strike sail to a fear!
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The characteristic of genuine heroism, is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.
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If you would serve your brother it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. Be true to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age.
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It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, “Always do what you are afraid to do.”
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Greatness once and forever has down with opinion.
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But whoso is heroic must find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds.
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Man is not what he thinks he is, but what he thinks he is!
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Every man needs to thank his faults.
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No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it.
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A great man is always willing to be little.
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When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; … he learns his ignorance, is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill.
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Every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.
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I learn to be content. But the doctrine of compensation is not the doctrine of indifferency.
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No man has ever had a point of pride that was not injurious to him.
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All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished--by fear…be honest with a man and you have no fear. Try to deceive and the relationship deteriorates.
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Fear is a great instructor.
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There can be no excess to love, none to knowledge, none to beauty.
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The soul refuses limits and always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism.
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And such should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment day by day.
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[on Thoreau:] He decided to give up his large ambition of knowledge and action for any narrow craft or profession, aiming at a much more comprehensive calling, the art of living.
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[on Thoreau:] For not a particle of respect had he to the opinions of any man or body of men, but homage solely to truth itself.
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I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, — "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it.
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We shun the rugged battle of fate where strength is born.
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Men of sense esteem wealth to be the assimilation of nature to themselves, the converting of the sap and juices of the planet to the incarnation and nutriment of their design.
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Power is what they want, not candy—power to execute their design, power to give legs and feet, form and actuality to their thought; which, to a clear-sighted man, appears the end for which the universe exists, and all its resources might be well applied.
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Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.
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Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus makes him necessary to society.
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The crime which bankrupts men and states is job-work—declining from your main design, to serve a turn here and there. Nothing is beneath you, if it is in the direction of your life, nothing is great or desirable if it is off from that. I think we are entitled here to draw a straight line and say that society can never prosper but must always be bankrupts, until every man does that which he was created to do.
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We can only be valued as we make ourselves valuable.
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In like manner the effect of every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds. The great man knew not that he was great. It took a century or two for that fact to appear. What he did, he did, he did because he must; it was the most natural thing in the world, and grew out of the circumstances of the moment.
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Love is our highest word and the synonym for God.
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There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.
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AS to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.
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The ancestor of every action is a thought.
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Every time you wink the stars move.
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A feeble man can see the farms that are fenced and tilled, the houses that are built. The strong man sees the possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates as fast as the sun breeds clouds.
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What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matter compared to what lies within us.
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Do not go where the pay may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
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The first wealth is health.
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The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
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The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be a friend.
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Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
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Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.
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To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius.
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A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
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To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
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Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.
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Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
Brian Johnson
Brian Johnson loves wisdom. That makes him a Philosopher. He also loves inspiring and empowering peeps to rock their greatest lives. That’s why he created PhilosophersNotes.
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