The most active lives have so much routine as to preclude progress almost equally with the most inactive. Ralph Waldo Emerson More Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson More Quotes From Ralph Waldo Emerson All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one. Ralph Waldo Emerson minorities historical power Talent for talent's sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor. Ralph Waldo Emerson power truth joy The poisons are our principal medicines, which kill the disease and save the life. Ralph Waldo Emerson medicine poison life The multitude of the sick shall not make us deny the existence of health. Ralph Waldo Emerson mental-health deny sick Homeopathy is insignificant as an act of healing, but of great value as criticism on the hygeia or medical practice of the time. Ralph Waldo Emerson criticism practice healing Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay. Ralph Waldo Emerson envy distinction pay We fly to beauty as an asylum from the terrors of finite nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson asylums nature beauty Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs. Ralph Waldo Emerson nature hair character When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new. Ralph Waldo Emerson praise looks new-day The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennui s, vanish, all duties even. Ralph Waldo Emerson tragedy winter night Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now. Ralph Waldo Emerson duration soul would-be Genius Borrows nobly. Ralph Waldo Emerson plagiarism genius Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well. Ralph Waldo Emerson atmosphere wells sympathy Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise. Ralph Waldo Emerson writing men book Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character. Ralph Waldo Emerson sensuality talent character It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History. Ralph Waldo Emerson writing running reality There is a certain satisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground of politics, for we get rid of cant and hypocrisy. Ralph Waldo Emerson politics hypocrisy satisfaction The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. Ralph Waldo Emerson stars running boys Slavery it is that makes slavery; freedom, freedom. The slavery of women happened when the men were slaves of kings. Ralph Waldo Emerson slavery women kings Tis the old secret of the gods that they come in low disguises. Ralph Waldo Emerson secret god lows
