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

“God offers to every mind a choice between repose and truth. take which you please--you can never have both. [Essay on Intellect]”

“America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.”

“Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.”

“Ideas must work through the brains and arms of men, or they are no better than dreams”

“People do not deserve good writing, they are so pleased with bad.”

“Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. 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.”

“When a candle seeks the company of the sun, it must accept the cost of being unseen.”

“When it comes to life and love, why do we believe our worst reviews?”

“We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives...not looking for flaws, but for potential.”

“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.”

“The secret, or innermost, level of wisdom is pure intuition, clarity, lucidity, innate wakefulness, presence, and recognition of reality. This transcendental wisdom is within all of us—it just needs to be discovered and developed, unfolded and actualized.”

“Can I tell from the twilight from which the world is built that I am a sunrise in this life?”