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 As we refine, our checks become finer. If we rise to spiritual culture, the antagonism takes a spiritual form. Ralph Waldo Emerson checks spiritual culture But there are higher secrets of culture, which are not for the apprentices, but for proficients. These are lessons only for the brave. We must know our friends under ugly masks. The calamities are our friends. Ralph Waldo Emerson hard-times brave secret No institution will be better than the institutor. Ralph Waldo Emerson institutions I think all men know better than they do; know that the institutions we so volubly commend are go-carts and baubles; but they darenot trust their presentiments. Ralph Waldo Emerson institutions men thinking You cannot institute, without peril of charlatanism. Ralph Waldo Emerson institute peril institutions We are adapted to infinity. We are hard to please, and love nothing which ends: and in nature is no end; but every thing, at the end of one use, is lifted into a superior, and the ascent of these things climbs into daemonic and celestial natures. Ralph Waldo Emerson ascent and-love use But a compassion for that which is not and cannot be useful and lovely, is degrading and futile. Ralph Waldo Emerson degrading lovely compassion The best nations are those most widely related; and navigation, as effecting a world-wide mixture, is the most potent advancer ofnations. Ralph Waldo Emerson mixtures race world Fashion, though in a strange way, represents all manly virtue. It is virtue gone to seed: it is a kind of posthumous honor. It does not often caress the great, but the children of the great: it is a hall of the Past. Ralph Waldo Emerson fashion children past Wise men read very sharply all your private history in your look and gait and behavior. The whole economy of nature is bent on expression. The tell-tale body is all tongues. Men are like Geneva watches with crystal faces which expose the whole movement. Ralph Waldo Emerson expression wise men There will always be in society certain persons who are mercuries of its approbation, and whose glance will at any time determinefor the curious their standing in the world. These are the chamberlains of the lesser gods. Accept their coldness as an omen of grace with the loftier deities, and allow them all their privilege. Ralph Waldo Emerson mercury grace world How much better when the whole land is a garden, and the people have grown up in the bowers of a paradise. Ralph Waldo Emerson garden land people A garden has this advantage, that it makes it indifferent where you live. A well-laid garden makes the face of the country of no account; let that be low or high, grand or mean, you have made a beautiful abode worthy of man. Ralph Waldo Emerson beautiful mean country The world globes itself in a drop of dew. Ralph Waldo Emerson globes dew world The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible. Ralph Waldo Emerson astronomy certain stars Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world. Ralph Waldo Emerson particles microcosm world Cities give not the human senses room enough. We go out daily and nightly to feed the eyes on the horizon, and require so much scope, just as we need water for our bath. Ralph Waldo Emerson eye cities giving Beware of too much good staying in your hand. It will fast corrupt and worm worms. Pay it away quickly in some sort. Ralph Waldo Emerson too-much pay hands The vulgar call good fortune that which really is produced by the calculations of genius. Ralph Waldo Emerson genius luck fortune The best conversation is rare. Society seems to have agreed to treat fictions as realities, and realities as fictions; and the simple lover of truth, especially if on very high grounds, as a religious or intellectual seeker, finds himself a stranger and alien. Ralph Waldo Emerson simple religious reality
