Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The reward of a thing well done is having done it.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed, but our power to do so is increased.

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.

When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, yourre the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.

There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

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

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

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.

The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship

The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.

To fill the hour──that is happiness.

Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment.

Write it on your heartthat every day is the best day in the year.He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the daywho allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.Finish every day and be done with it.You have done what you could.Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;begin it well and serenely, with too high a spiritto be cumbered with your old nonsense.This new day is too dear,with its hopes and invitations,to waste a moment on the yesterdays.

Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

If the single man plants himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abides, this huge world will come around to him.

Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.

The South-wind bringsLife, sunshine and desire,And on every mount and meadowBreathes aromatic fire;But over the dead he has no power,The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;And, looking over the hills, I mournThe darling who shall not return.

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