Quotations from
Ralph Waldo Emerson
[1803-82]

American essayist, lecturer, and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-XIXth century and was seen as a champion of individualism. He wrote his ideas first as lectures, then revised for publication. He published dozens of essays and delivered more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.

Links are provided below for further investigation.
The references to WMail issues indicate quotes that appeared in the free monthly 'WMail' ezine
connected with the revolutionary "Working Minds Philosophy of Empowerment" created by G.E. Nordell.

After WMail Issue #72 in October 2007, essays & quotations & news are being posted to the Dateline Chamesa blog

Ralph Waldo Emerson entry at Wikipedia

Ralph Waldo Emerson Page
at Spirit of America Bookstore

“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.”  {Issue #12}
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“Any time is a good time if you know what to do with it.”  {Issue #43}
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“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny little matters
compared to what lies within us.”  {Issue #43}
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“Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the
terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.” (in "The Conduct of Life")  {Issue #49}
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“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail.”  {Issue #54 & blog 5/2008}
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“To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and
the affection of children; to find the best in others; to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived ... this is to have succeeded.”  {Issue #62}
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“An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.”  {Issue #70}
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“Write it in your heart that every day is the best day of the year.”  {blog 2/2008}
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“Man was born to be rich or inevitably to grow rich through the use of his faculties.”  {blog 9/2008}
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“You can never do a kindness too soon, because you will never know how soon
it will be too late.”  {blog 11/2008}
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“The sense of being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility
which religion is powerless to bestow.”  {blog 11/2008}
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“Every artist was first an amateur.”  {blog 6/2009}
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“The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.” (in 1838)  {blog 12/2009}
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“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”  {blog 2/2010}
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“Common sense is genius with its work clothes on.”  {blog 2/2010}
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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.”  {blog 3/2010}
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“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”  {blog 3/2010}
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“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Every great man is unique.”  {blog 4/2010}
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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.”  {blog 5/2010}
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“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”  {blog 6/2010}
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“All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position
or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids,
act on the defensive.”  {blog 10/2010}
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“Sorrow makes us all children again, destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest
know nothing.”  {blog 6/2011}
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“Happiness is a perfume [that] you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on oneself.”  {blog 7/2011}
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“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”  {blog 11/2011}
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“Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?”  {blog 12/2011}
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“People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.”
— in "Circles", 1841   {blog 1/2012}
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“All diseases run into one, old age.”  {blog 5/2012}
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“You will always find those who think [that] they know your duty better than you know it.”  {blog 10/2012}
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“For every minute [that] you are angry, you lost 60 seconds of happiness.”  {blog 12/2012}
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“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”  {blog 7/2013}
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“When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore
the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.”  {blog 9/2013}
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“There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it,
and will not attack you in good clothes.”  {blog 9/2013}
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“All our progress is unfolding. Trust the instinct to the end.”  {blog 3/2014}
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“Artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting [that] they give.”  {blog 11/2014}
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“The only person [that] you are destined to become is the person [that] you decide to be.”  {blog 4/2015}
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“To know [that] even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”  {blog 7/2015}
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“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”  {blog 7/2015}
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“There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.”  {blog 8/2015}
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“The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”  {blog 4/2016}
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“I cannot remember the books [that] I’ve read any more than the meals [that] I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”  {blog 8/2016}
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“Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty.”  {blog 10/2016}
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“Always do what you are afraid to do.”  {blog 1/2017 & 5/2022}
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“Each man has his own vocation: His talent is his call.”  {blog 2/2017}
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“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”  {blog 5/2017}
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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.”
- essay "Self-Reliance" [1841]  {blog 4/2018}
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“Our chief want (lack) in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.”  {blog 4/2018}
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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.”  {blog 5/2018}
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“Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.”  {blog 5/2018}
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“Science does not know its debt to imagination.”  {blog 6/2018}
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“Peace has victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”  {blog 12/2018}
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“He who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”  {blog 3/2020}
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“The world is all gates, all opportunities.”  {blog 7/2022}
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“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”  {blog 10/2022}
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“The creed of the street is, Old Age is not disgraceful, but immensely disadvantageous.” - in 1862  {blog 12/2024}

Emerson Quotations Not Yet Used on the Blog

"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself."

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

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