Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

“Always do what you are afraid to do.”

“Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.”

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”

“Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.”

“Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

“Do the thing, and you shall have the power.”

“Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

“Economy does not consist in saving the coal, but in using the time while it burns.”

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”

“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinions; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“It is not the length of life, but the depth.”

“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”

“Man was born to be rich, or grows rich by the use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature.”

“Meet your failure nobly, and it will not differ from success.”

“Men succeed when they realize that their failures are the preparation for their victories.”

“Nothing external to you has any power over you.”

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”

“Postpone not your life.”

“Science does not know its debt to imagination.”

“So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.”

“Successful is the person who has lived well, laughed often and loved much, who has gained the respect of children, who leaves the world better than they found it, who has never lacked appreciation for the earth's beauty, who never fails to look for the best in others or give the best of themselves.”

“The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.”

“The first wealth is health.”

“The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”