Philosophy Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“When a man is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something.”

“For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word or a verse and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write down these cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though imperfect, become the songs of the nations.”

“When we are young, we spend much time and pains in filling our note-books with all definitions of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, in the hope that, in the course of a few years, we shall have condensed into our encyclopaedia the net value of all the theories at which the world has yet arrived. But year after year our tables get no completeness, and at last we discover that our curve is a parabola, whose arcs will never meet.”

“Who you are is speaking so loudly that I can't hear what you're saying”

“Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.”

“Les hommes construisent trop de murs et pas assez de ponts.”

“Let education kindle only those which are truly beneficial”

“This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction. (...) Forever I shall be a stranger to myself.”

“we deceive ourselves in thinking that death only follows life whereas it both goes before and will follow after it for where is the difference in not beginning or ceasing to exist the effect of both is not to be”

“In the storm of struggle, find your anchor; it is the relentless pursuit of passion that will guide you safely to shore.”

“You know, I think that only if one feels immensely important can one feel truly light.”