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Ralph Waldo Emerson on Birthday

1803–1882 United States

← All quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

14 quotes

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

Society and Solitude (1870)

We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.

Society and Solitude (1870)

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

Society and Solitude (1870)

The only way to have a good friend is to be one.

Essays (1841)

The highest compact we can make with our fellow, is, — "Let there be truth between us two forevermore".

There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never mutual respect, until, in their dialogue, each stands for the whole world.

I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances.

The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it.

Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. Friendship requires more time than poor, busy men can usually command.

A day for toil, an hour for sport,
But for a friend is life too short.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.

The wise man … needs no bribe or feast or palace to draw friends to him. He is supremely fair. He angles with himself and with no other bait.

As we grow old....the beauty turns inward.

Our friends early appear to us as representatives of certain ideas, which they never pass or exceed. They stand on the brink of the ocean of thought and power, but they never take a single step that would bring them there.

Essays (1841)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Ralph Waldo Emerson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.