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 In this our talking America, we are ruined by our good nature and listening on all sides. This compliance takes away the power ofbeing greatly useful. Ralph Waldo Emerson listening talking america I am ready to die out of nature, and be born again into this new yet unapproachable America I have found in the West. Ralph Waldo Emerson united-states dying america Great country, diminutive minds. America is formless, has no terrible and no beautiful condensation. Ralph Waldo Emerson beautiful country america The land is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our culture. The continent we inhabit is to be physic andfood for our mind, as well as our body. The land, with its tranquilizing, sanative influences, is to repair the errors of a scholastic and traditional education, and bring us to just relations with men and things. Ralph Waldo Emerson errors land men The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics andtrade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water. Ralph Waldo Emerson distance land america From Washington, proverbially "the city of distances," through all its cities, states, and territories, it is a country of beginnings, of projects, of designs, and expectations. Ralph Waldo Emerson distance cities country The things we now esteem fixed shall, one by one, detach themselves, like ripe fruit, from our experience, and fall. The wind shall blow them none knows whither. Ralph Waldo Emerson blow wind fall But to most of us society shows not its face and eye, but its side and back. To stand in true relations with men in a false age isworth a fit of insanity, is it not? Ralph Waldo Emerson honesty eye men We say that every man is entitled to be valued by his best moment. We measure our friends so. We know, they have intervals of folly, whereof we take no heed, but wait the reappearings of the genius, which are sure and beautiful. Ralph Waldo Emerson friends beautiful men Any relation to the land, the habit of tilling it, or mining it, or even hunting on it, generates the feeling of patriotism. He who keeps shop on it, or he who merely uses it as a support to his desk and ledger, or to his manufactory, values it less. Ralph Waldo Emerson hunting shopping land I pray my companion, if he wishes for bread, to ask me for bread, and if he wishes for sassafras or arsenic, to ask me for them, and not to hold out his plate, as if I knew already. Ralph Waldo Emerson arsenic bread wish Strange is this alien despotism of Sleep which takes two persons lying in each other's arms & separates them leagues, continents,asunder. Ralph Waldo Emerson sleep two lying Sleep takes off the costume of circumstance, arms us with terrible freedom, so that every will rushes to a deed. Ralph Waldo Emerson costumes deeds sleep We sell the thrones of angels for a short and turbulent pleasure. Ralph Waldo Emerson thrones pleasure angel The richest of all lords is Use, Ralph Waldo Emerson sunshine health sea Pain is superficial, and therefore fear is. The torments of martyrdoms are probably most keenly felt by the by-standers. Ralph Waldo Emerson superficial pain fear Marriage (in what is called the spiritual world) is impossible, because of the inequality between every subject and every object. Ralph Waldo Emerson marriage spiritual world I wish to speak with all respect of persons, but sometimes I must pinch myself to keep awake, and preserve the due decorum. They melt so fast into each other, that they are like grass and trees, and it needs an effort to treat them as individuals. Ralph Waldo Emerson boredom respect effort Life must be lived on a higher plane. We must go up to a higher platform, to which we are always invited to ascend; there, the whole aspect of things changes. Ralph Waldo Emerson planes things-change platforms For everything you gain, you lose something. Ralph Waldo Emerson missing-someone missing-you i-miss-you
