Ralph Waldo Emerson 22

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

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (12 April, 1834) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 21

No man can have society upon his own terms. If he seeks it, he must serve it too. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (1833) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 20

A man contains all that is needful to his government within himself. He is made a law unto himself. All real good or evil that can befall him must be from himself. He only can do himself any good or any harm. Nothing can be given to him or can taken from him but always there is a compensation. 

There is a correspondence between the human soul and everything that exists in the world; more properly, everything that is known to man. Instead of studying things without the principles of them, all may be penetrated unto with him. Every act puts the agent in a new position. 

The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself. He is not to live the future as described to him but to live the real future to the real present. The highest revelation is that God is in every man. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (8 September, 1833) 

IMAGE: Tintoretto, Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet (1549) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 19

A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (20 June, 1831) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 18

The Religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. It acknowledges that it is not equal to the whole of truth, that it legislates, tyrannizes over a village of God's empires but is not the immutable universal law. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion and making way for truth. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (4 March, 1831) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 17

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. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (10 December, 1824) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 16

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (20 December, 1822) 

IMAGE: Vank Cathedral, Heaven, Earth, Hell (c. 1660) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 15

We are never without a pilot. When we know not how to steer, and dare not hoist a sail, we can drift. The current knows the way, though we do not. The ship of heaven guides itself, and will not accept a wooden rudder. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Sovereignty of Ethics" (1878) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 14

Money often costs too much. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life 

IMAGE: Simon Vouet, Allegory of Contempt for Wealth (c. 1640) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 13

Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Greatness 

IMAGE: Ludwig Deutsch, The Scholars (1901) 

Own the Day

Ralph Waldo Emerson 12

A mind does not receive truth as a chest receives jewels that are put into it, but as the stomach takes up food into the system. 

It is no longer food, but flesh, and is assimilated. 

The appetite and the power of digestion measure our right to knowledge. He has it who can use it. 

As soon as our accumulation overruns our invention or power to use, the evils of intellectual gluttony begin—congestion of the brain, apoplexy, and strangulation. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Natural History of Intellect 

IMAGE: Pietro Testa, The Symposium (1648) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 11

What strength belongs to every plant and animal in nature. The tree or the brook has no duplicity, no pretentiousness, no show. 

It is, with all its might and main, what it is, and makes one and the same impression and effect at all times. All the thoughts of a turtle are turtles, and of a rabbit, rabbits. 

But a man is broken and dissipated by the giddiness of his will; he does not throw himself into his judgments; his genius leads him one way but 'tis likely his trade or politics in quite another. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Natural History of Intellect 

IMAGE: Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Tree by the Brook (c. 1831) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 10

The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Natural History of Intellect 

IMAGE: Francisco Goya, The Fates (1823) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 9

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Fortune of the Republic 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 8

Nothing can be preserved that is not good. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, In Praise of Books 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 7

Solvency is maintained by means of the national debt, on the principle, "If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?" 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, English Traits 

IMAGE: by James Gillray (1786) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 6

Slavery is disheartening; but Nature is not so helpless but it can rid itself of every last wrong. 

But the spasms of nature are centuries and ages and will tax the faith of short-lived men. Slowly, slowly the Avenger comes, but comes surely. 

The proverbs of the nations affirm these delays, but affirm the arrival. They say, "God may consent, but not forever." 

The delay of the Divine Justice—this was the meaning and soul of the Greek Tragedy—this was the soul of their religion. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Fugitive Slave Law 

IMAGE: John Simpson, The Captive Slave (1827) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 5

Self-reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Fugitive Slave Law 

IMAGE: Jan Bruegel the Younger, The Creation of Adam (c. 1650) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 4

He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Address on the Method of Nature 

IMAGE: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Beloved (1866)