Ralph Waldo Emerson Wisdom Quotations

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today.

It is the delight of vulgar talent to dazzle and to bind the beholder. But true genius seeks to defend us from itself. True geniuswill not impoverish, but will liberate, and add new sense. If a wise man should appear in our village, he would create, in those who conversed with him, a new consciousness of wealth, by opening their eyes to unobserved advantages; he would establish a sense of immovable equality, calm us with assurances that we could not be cheated; as every one would discern the checks and guarantees of condition.

There is a certain wisdom of humanity which is common to the greatest men with the lowest, and which our ordinary education oftenlabors to silence and obstruct.

Much of the wisdom of the world is not wisdom, and the most illuminated class of men are no doubt superior to literary fame, and are not writers.

Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom.

We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth.

To educate the wise man, the State exists; and with the appearance of the wise man, the State expires. The appearance of charactermakes the state unnecessary. The wise man is the State.

It is so wonderful to our neurologists that a man can see without his eyes, that it does not occur to them that is just as wonderful that he should see with them; and that is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what is unusual, the wise man wonders at the usual.

Be lord of a day, through wisdom and justice, and you can put up your history books.

The first questions are always to be asked, and the wisest doctor is gravelled by the inquisitiveness of a child.

A cheerful intelligent face is the end of culture, and success enough. For it indicates the purpose of Nature and wisdom attained.

Many times the reading of a book has made the future of a man.

Half a man's wisdom goes with his courage.

Self trust is the essence of heroism.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom.

The years teach much which the days never know.

The world is plentiful with honey, but only the humble bee can collect it.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

Life is a festival only to the wise.

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Wisdom will never let us stand with any man on an unfriendly footing. We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if we waited for some better sympathy or intimacy to come. But whence and when: Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live.

It is commonly observed that a sudden wealth, like a prize drawn in a lottery or a large bequest to a poor family, does not permanently enrich. They have served no apprenticeship to wealth, and with the rapid wealth come rapid claims which they do not know how to deny, and the treasure is quickly dissipated.

Wisdom is infused into every form.

Every moment instructs, and every object; for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence until after long time.

Body cannot teach wisdom; God only.

Who shall forbid a wise skepticism, seeing that there is no practical question on which anything more than an approximate solution can be had?

To live the greatest number of good hours is wisdom.

To make knowledge valuable, you must have the cheerfulness of wisdom.

Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty.

One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one man's wisdom anpther's folly.

We estimate the wisdom of nations by seeing what they did with their surplus capital.

Freedom is not the right to live as we please, but the right to find how we ought to live in order to fulfill our potential.

Crime and punishment grow out of one stem.

Wise men are not wise at all times.

Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.