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The ancestor of every action is a thought.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Related topics: Wisdom Intention
Every wall is a door.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 
Fear defeats more people than
any other one thing in the world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What lies behind us and what lies before us
are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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People only see what they are prepared to see.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
When It's Darkest, Men See the Stars.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to leave the world a better place,
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hitch your wagon to a star.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
With the past, I have nothing to do;
nor with the future. I live now.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
As long as a man stands in his own way,
everything seems to be in his way.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Shallow men believe in luck.
Strong men believe in cause and effect.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Most of the shadows of life are caused
by standing in our own sunshine.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
This time, like all times, is a very good one,
if we but know what to do with it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing external to you has any power over you.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The world is all gates, all opportunities,
strings of tension waiting to be struck.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are wiser than we know.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Write it on your heart that every day
is the best day in the year.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What you do speaks so loudly
that I cannot hear what you say.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues
have never been discovered.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are other measures of self-respect for a man,
than the number of clean shirts he puts on every day.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Truth is the property of no individual
but is the treasure of all men.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
To leave the world a bit better ...
to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is what he thinks about all day long.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
For everything you have missed,
you have gained something else,
and for everything you gain,
you lose something else.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Before we acquire great power
we must acquire wisdom to use it well.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
People seem not to see that
their opinion of the world
is also a confession of character.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Judge your natural character
by what you do in your dreams.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
To know even one life has
breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
People do not seem to realize that
their opinion of the world
is also a confession of character.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
You cannot do a kindness too soon,
for you never know how soon it will be too late.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Music takes us out of the actual
and whispers to us dim secrets
that startle our wonder as to who we are.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
For every minute you remain angry,
you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wise men put their trust in ideas
and not in circumstances
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are rich only through what we give,
and poor only through what we refuse.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cause and effect are two sides of one fact.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants,
and to serve them one's self?
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The reason why men do not obey us,
is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man in debt is so far a slave.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Character is higher than intellect.
A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society is a masked ball,
where every one hides his real character,
and reveals it by hiding.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A great man is always willing to be little.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the uttermost meaning of the words,
thought is devout, and devotion is thought.
Deep calls unto deep.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions.
All life is an experiment.
The more experiments you make the better.
What if they are a little coarse,
and you may get your coat soiled or torn?
What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled
in the dirt once or twice.
Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The invariable mark of wisdom is to
see the miraculous in the common.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. -
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trust your instinct to the end,
though you can render no reason.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man,
but he is brave five minutes longer.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Words are also actions,
and actions are a kind of words.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is a good ear, in some men,
that draws supplies to virtue
out of very indifferent nutriment.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are as many pillows of illusion
as flakes in a snow-storm.
We wake from one dream into another dream.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces
that incessantly draw great events.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
To be great is to be misunderstood.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Little minds have little worries,
big minds have no time for worries.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A chief event of life is the day in which
we have encountered a mind that startled us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wisdom has its root in goodness,
not goodness its root in wisdom.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Unless you try to do something
beyond what you have already mastered,
you will never grow.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine,
a possession for all time.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
To be yourself in a world that
is constantly trying to make you something else
is the greatest accomplishment.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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