Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“Postpone not your life.”

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

“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.”

“The world belongs to the energetic.”

“The years in your life are less important than the life in your years.”

“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”

“Why should the way I feel depend on the thoughts in someone else's head?”

“Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.”

“With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.”