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 Poetry teaches the enormous force of a few words, and, in proportion to the inspiration, checks loquacity. Ralph Waldo Emerson enormous few-words inspiration The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. Ralph Waldo Emerson doom mediocrity hopeless Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly in endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one. Ralph Waldo Emerson wall heart men When half-gods go Ralph Waldo Emerson half The worst of charity is that the lives you are asked to preserve are not worth preserving. Ralph Waldo Emerson philanthropy charity life The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool. Ralph Waldo Emerson excess wisdom wise Pines a thousand years old. Every year they must go farther for them: they recede, like beavers and Indians, before the white man. Ralph Waldo Emerson white-man men years If a man knows the law, find out, though he live in a pine shanty, and resort to him. And if a man can pipe or sing, so as to wrap the imprisoned soul in an elysium; or can paint a landscape, and convey into souls and ochres all the enchantments of Spring or Autumn; or can liberate and intoxicate all people who hear him with delicious songs and verses; it is certain that the secret cannot be kept; the first witness tells it to a second, and men go by fives and tens and fifties to his doors. Ralph Waldo Emerson autumn spring song Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial. Ralph Waldo Emerson growth cities people People suffer all their life long, under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated. But it is impossible for a person to be cheated by anyone but himself. Ralph Waldo Emerson suffering long people In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking his way along, step by step, using every time an old boulder, yet never setting his foot on an old place. Ralph Waldo Emerson feet time men What is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects. Ralph Waldo Emerson vision men life We never touch but at points. Ralph Waldo Emerson solitude friendship The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting. Ralph Waldo Emerson rope wise law Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past? Ralph Waldo Emerson parent children past The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it. Ralph Waldo Emerson passion sleep heart Out from the heart of Nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old. Ralph Waldo Emerson burden nature heart The only thing that can grow is the thing you give energy to. Ralph Waldo Emerson energy leadership giving Life only avails, not the having lived. Ralph Waldo Emerson life-changing inspire life Our people are slow to learn the wisdom of sending character instead of talent to Congress. Again and again they have sent a man of great acuteness, a fine scholar, a fine forensic orator, and some master of the brawls has crunched him up in his hands like a bit of paper. Ralph Waldo Emerson character men hands
