Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson, known professionally as Waldo Emerson, was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth25 May 1803
CountryUnited States of America
The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded.
The highest proof of civility is that the whole public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the greatest number.
There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not always call itself by that name.
Man carries the world in his head, the whole astronomy and chemistry suspended in a thought. Because the history of nature is charactered in his brain, therefore he is the prophet and discoverer of her secrets. Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified.
The astronomers said, 'Give us matter and a little motion and we will construct the universe. It is not enough that we should have matter, we must also have a single impulse, one shove to launch the mass and generate the harmony of the centrifugal and centripetal forces.' ... There is no end to the consequences of the act. That famous aboriginal push propagates itself through all the balls of the system, and through every atom of every ball.
Line in Nature is not found; Unit and Universe are round.
The greatest discoveries are those that shed light unto ourselves.
The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.
A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us
Imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.
Each man has his own vocation; his talent is his call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him.
The soul refuses limits and always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism.
Give no bounties: make equal laws: secure life and prosperity and you need not give alms.
You cannot do a kindness too soon.