A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Life
- 1803-1882
- Occupations
- philosopher, poet, writer
- Notable works
- Concord Hymn, The Humble-Bee, Music
Facts: Wikidata (CC0), as of 2026-07-09
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit and our swelter of heat, we say we have had our day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. 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
The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The majority of men are bundles of beginnings.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to his opinion 20 years later.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to his opinion twenty years later.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We do what we must, and call it by the best names.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We ought to celebrate this hour by expressions of manly joy. Not thanks, not prayer seem quite the highest or truest name for our communication with the infinite,-but glad and conspiring reception,-reception that becomes giving in its turn, as the receiver is only the All-Giver in part and infancy.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Who you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that every day is Doomsday.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every artist was first an amateur.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson