Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.

Men admire the man who can organize their wishes and thoughts in stone and wood and steel and brass.

The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.

The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force – that thoughts rule the world.

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.