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 If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment. The mixtures of spiritual chemistry refuse to be analyzed. Ralph Waldo Emerson mixtures spiritual doe All things are moral; and in their boundless changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson moral all-things spiritual I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look,begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary! Ralph Waldo Emerson sanctuary church looks An individual is an encloser. Time and space, liberty and necessity, truth and thought, are left at large no longer. Ralph Waldo Emerson individualism liberty space All public facts are to be individualized, all private facts are to be generalized. Ralph Waldo Emerson individualism facts All men, in the abstract, are just and good; what hinders them, in the particular, is, the momentary predominance of the finite and individual over the general truth. The condition of our incarnation in a private self, seems to be, a perpetual tendency to prefer the private law, to obey the private impulse, to the exclusion of the law of the universal being. Ralph Waldo Emerson self law men The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own actions, and expressing that lordship in his behavior, not in any manner dependent and servile either on persons, or opinions, or possessions. Ralph Waldo Emerson gentleman action men Each man, if he attempts to join himself to others, is on all sides cramped and diminished of his proportion; and the stricter theunion, the smaller and the more pitiful he is. But leave him alone, to recognize in every hour and place the secret soul, he will go up and down doing the works of a true member, and, to the astonishment of all, the work will be done with concert, though no man spoke. Ralph Waldo Emerson soul secret men The tendencies of the times favor the idea of self-government, and leave the individual, for all code, to the rewards and penalties of his own constitution, which work with more energy than we believe, whilst we depend on artificial restraints. Ralph Waldo Emerson government self believe We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universalthat error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson errors discovery men The private life of one man shall be a more illustrious monarchy,--more formidable to its enemy, more sweet and serene in its influence to its friend, than any kingdom in history. For a man, rightly viewed, comprehendeth the particular natures of all men. Ralph Waldo Emerson sweet men enemy Now every one must do after his kind, be he asp or angel, and these must. Ralph Waldo Emerson individualism angel kind In daily life what distinguishes the master is the using those materials he has, instead of looking about for what are more renowned, or what others have used well. Ralph Waldo Emerson individualism daily-life used For splendor, there must somewhere be rigid economy. That the head of the house may go brave, the members must be plainly clad, and the town must save that the State may spend. Ralph Waldo Emerson government brave house The highest end of government is the culture of men. Ralph Waldo Emerson ends men culture Hence, the less government we have, the better,--the fewer laws, and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formalGovernment, is, the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual; the appearance of the principal to supersede the proxy; the appearance of the wise man, of whom the existing government, is, it must be owned, but a shabby imitation. Ralph Waldo Emerson wise character men Miracle comes to the miraculous, not to the arithmetician. Ralph Waldo Emerson miraculous miracle Nature is upheld by antagonism. Ralph Waldo Emerson antagonism Though your views are in straight antagonism to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, assume that you are saying precisely thatwhich all think, and in the flow of wit and love roll out your paradoxes in solid column, with not the infirmity of a doubt. Ralph Waldo Emerson views doubt thinking The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, with the advantage that the ocular dialect needs no dictionary, but is understood all the world over. Ralph Waldo Emerson eye men needs
