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

“The South-wind brings”

“Oblivion here thy wisdom is,”

“It is only when the mind and character slumber that the dress can be seen.”

“The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.”

“Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.”

“The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre. For the world is not painted, or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe. Therefore the poet is not any permissive potentate, but is emperor in his own right. Criticism is infested with a cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit it to imitate the sayers. The poet does not wait for the hero or the sage, but, as they act and think primarily, so he writes primarily what will and must be spoken, reckoning the others, though primaries also, yet, in respect to him, secondaries and servants; as sitters or models in the studio of a painter, or as assistants who bring building materials to an architect.”

“Always take a compliment, Caroline. Always take it for the way it was intended. You girls are always so quick to twist what others say. Simply say thank you and move on.”

“He knows he will be born again,”

“There are no laws, only habits of existence so deep that to break them would require unmaking the world that contains them.”

“Memory is a kind of cartography. We redraw ourselves every time we look back.”

“Some people are like thorns. But you have to let them be thorns, because thorns can't turn into petals. The trick is not letting them prick you; never let a thorn prick you!”

“Anything that comes your way by force was not meant for you. Everything that locates you on it's own was yours and will be yours forever.”