The reason why men do not obey us,
is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Related topics: Values Business Leadership Honor
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 
People only see what they are prepared to see.
- 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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Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fear defeats more people than
any other one thing in the world.
- 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
Every wall is a door.
- 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
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
The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What you are comes to you.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only gift is a portion of thyself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The years teach much which the days never know.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
People that seem so glorious are all show;
underneath they are like everyone else.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Great men or men of great gifts
you shall easily find,
but symmetrical men never.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Truth is the property of no individual
but is the treasure of all men.
- 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
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trust your instinct to the end,
though you can render no reason.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are wiser than we know.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The fox has many tricks.
The hedgehog has but one.
But that is the best of all.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is a good ear, in some men,
that draws supplies to virtue
out of very indifferent nutriment.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
To be great is to be misunderstood.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The invariable mark of wisdom is to
see the miraculous in the common.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
As long as a man stands in his own way,
everything seems to be in his way.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bad times have a scientific value.
These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The sum of wisdom is that
time is never lost that is devoted to work.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Always do what you are afraid to do.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society is a masked ball,
where every one hides his real character,
and reveals it by hiding.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If the stars should appear
but one night every thousand years
how man would marvel and stare.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
When we have arrived at the question,
the answer is already near.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The speed of the leader determines the rate of the pack.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
People seem not to see that
their opinion of the world
is also a confession of character.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every experiment, by multitudes or by individuals,
that has a sensual and selfish aim, will fail.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hitch your wagon to a star.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Build a better mousetrap
and the world will beat a path to your door.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trust men and they will be true to you;
treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Most of the shadows of life are caused
by standing in our own sunshine.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Judge your natural character
by what you do in your dreams.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is what he thinks about all day long.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing is at last sacred, but the integrity of your own mind.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Genius is the power to labor better and more availably.
Deserve thy genius: exalt it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If a man can... make a better mousetrap,
the world will make a beaten path to his door.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
With the past, I have nothing to do;
nor with the future. I live now.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children
that makes the heart too big for the body.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Unless you try to do something
beyond what you have already mastered,
you will never grow.
- 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
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man in debt is so far a slave.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The wise man in the storm prays God,
not for safety from danger,
but for deliverance from fear.
It is the storm within which endangers him,
not the storm without.
- 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
The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wisdom has its root in goodness,
not goodness its root in wisdom.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wise men put their trust in ideas
and not in circumstances
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
To know even one life has
breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.
- 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
This time, like all times, is a very good one,
if we but know what to do with it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Before we acquire great power
we must acquire wisdom to use it well.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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