The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing…

Whoever considers the final cause of the world, will discern a multitude of uses that result. They all admit of being thrown into one of…

A nobler want of man is served by nature, namely, the love of Beauty.

Language is a third use which Nature subserves to man. Nature is the vehicle, and threefold degree.

In view of the significance of nature, we arrive at once at a new This use of the world includes the preceding uses, as parts of itself.

Thus is the unspeakable but intelligible and practicable meaning of the world conveyed to man, the immortal pupil, in every object of…

It is essential to a true theory of nature and of man, that it should contain somewhat progressive. Uses that are exhausted or that may be,…

In inquiries respecting the laws of the world and the frame of things, the highest reason is always the truest. That which seems faintly…

An Oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 31, 1837

Delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, July 15, 1838

An Oration delivered before the Literary Societies of Dartmouth College, July 24, 1838

An Oration delivered before the Society of the Adelphi, in Waterville College, Maine, August 11, 1841

A Lecture read before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library Association, Boston, January 25, 1841

Read at the Masonic Temple, Boston, December 2, 1841

A Lecture delivered at the Masonic Temple, Boston, December 9, 1841

A Lecture read at the Masonic Temple, Boston, January, 1842

A Lecture read before the Mercantile Library Association, Boston, February 7, 1844

There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the…

I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an…

Ever since I was a boy, I have wished to write a discourse on Compensation: for it seemed to me when very young, that on this subject life…

When the act of reflection takes place in the mind, when we look at ourselves in the light of thought, we discover that our life is…

Every promise of the soul has innumerable fulfillments; each often. Nature, uncontainable, flowing, forelooking, in the first sentiment of…

We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human…

What right have I to write on Prudence, whereof I have little,and that of the negative sort? My prudence consists in avoiding and going…

In the elder English dramatists, and mainly in the pays of Beaumont and Fletcher, there is a constant recognition of gentility, as if a…

There is a difference between one and another hour of life, in their authority and subsequent effect. Our faith comes in moments; our vice…

The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end.…

Every substance is negatively electric to that which stands above it in the chemical tables, positively to that which stands below it.…

Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole. This…

Those who are esteemed umpires of taste are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an…

Where do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none. We wake and find ourselves on a…

I have read that those who listened to Lord Chatham felt that there was something finer in the man, than anything which he said. It has…

Half the world, it is said, knows not how the other half live. Our Exploring Expedition saw the Feejee islanders getting their dinner off…

It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into…

There are days which occur in this climate, at almost any season of the year, wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the air, the…

In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institutions are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born: that…

I cannot often enough say, that a man is only a relative and representative nature. Each is a hint of the truth, but far enough from being…

A Lecture read before the Society in Amory Hall, on Sunday, 3 March, 1844

It is natural to believe in great men. If the companions of our childhood should turn out to be heroes, and their condition regal it would…

Among secular books, Plato only is entitled to Omar’s fanatical compliment to the Koran, when he said, “Burn the libraries; for their value…

Among eminent persons, those who are most dear to men are not of the class which the economist calls producers: they have nothing in their…

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and on the other to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two…

Great men are more distinguished by range and extent than by originality. If we require the originality which consists in weaving, like a…

Among the eminent persons of the nineteenth century, Bonaparte is far the best known and the most powerful; and owes his predominance to…

I find a provision in the constitution of the world for the writer, or secretary, who is to report the doings of the miraculous spirit of…

I have been twice in England. In 1833, on my return from a short tour in Sicily, Italy, and France, I crossed from Boulogne, and landed in…

The occasion of my second visit to England was an invitation from some Mechanics’ Institutes in Lancashire and Yorkshire, which separately…

Alfieri thought Italy and England the only countries worth living in; the former, because there nature vindicates her rights, and triumphs…

An ingenious anatomist has written a book (*) to prove that races are imperishable, but nations are pliant political constructions, easily…

The saxon and the Northman are both Scandinavians. History does not allow us to fix the limits of the application of these names with any…

I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, mettle…

The teutonic tribes have a national singleness of heart, which contrasts with the Latin races. The German name has a proverbial…

The English race are reputed morose. I do not know that they have sadder brows than their neighbors of northern climates. They are sad by…

The English are a nation of humorists. Individual right is pushed to the uttermost bound compatible with public order. Property is so…

There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. In America, there is a touch of shame when a man exhibits the…

The feudal character of the English state, now that it is getting obsolete, glares a little, in contrast with the democratic tendencies.…

Of British universities, Cambridge has the most illustrious names on its list. At the present day, too, it has the advantage of Oxford,…

No people, at the present day, can be explained by their national religion. They do not feel responsible for it; it lies far outside of…

A strong common sense, which it is not easy to unseat or disturb, marks the English mind for a thousand years: a rude strength newly…

The power of the newspaper is familiar in America, and in accordance with our political system. In England, it stands in antagonism with…

It had been agreed between my friend Mr. Carlyle and me, that before I left England, we should make an excursion together to Stonehenge,…

In these comments on an old journey now revised after seven busy yearse much changed men and things in England, I have abstained from…

England is the best of actual nations. It is no ideal framework, it is an old pile built in different ages, with repairs, additions, and…

A few days after my arrival at Manchester, in November, 1847, the Manchester Athenaeum gave its annual Banquet in the Free-Trade Hall. With…

It chanced during one winter, a few years ago, that our cities were bent on discussing the theory of the Age. By an odd coincidence, four…

There is not yet any inventory of a man’s faculties, any more than a bible of his opinions. Who shall set a limit to the influence of a…

As soon as a stranger is introduced into any company, one of the first questions which all wish to have answered, is, How does that man get…

The word of ambition at the present day is Culture. Whilst all the world is in pursuit of power, and of wealth as a means of power, culture…

Some years ago, in company with an agreeable party, I spent a long summer day in exploring the Mammoth Cave Web Site in Kentucky. We…

The soul which animates Nature is not less significantly published in the figure, movement, and gesture of animated bodies, than in its…

Some of my friends have complained, when the preceding papers were read, that we discussed Fate, Power, and Wealth, on too low a platform;…

Although this garrulity of advising is born with us, I confess that life is rather a subject of wonder, than of didactics. So much fate, so…

The spiral tendency of vegetation infects education also. Our books approach very slowly the things we most wish to know. What a parade we…

I fell in with a humorist on my travels, who had in his chamber a cast of the Rondanini Medusa, and who assured me that the name which that…

A certain degree of progress from the rudest state in which man is found,—a dweller in caves, or on trees, like an ape,—a cannibal, and…

All departments of life at the present day – Trade, Politics, Letters, Science, or Religion – seem to feel, and to labor to express, the…

It is the doctrine of the popular music-masters that whoever can speak can sing. So probably every man is eloquent once in his life. Our…

The perfection of the providence for childhood is easily acknowledged. The care which covers the seed of the tree under tough husks and…

The glory of the farmer is that, in the division of labors, it is his part to create. All trade rests at last on his primitive activity. He…

Our nineteenth century is the age of tools. They grew out of our structure. “Man is the meter of all things,” said Aristotle; “the hand is…

It is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are easily found; and the best are but records, and not the things recorded; and certainly there…

We are delicate machines, and require nice treatment to get from us the maximum of power and pleasure. We need tonics, but must have those…

I observe that there are three qualities which conspicuously attract the wonder and reverence of mankind:—

Our American people cannot be taxed with slowness in performance or in praising their performance. The earth is shaken by our engineries.…

On the anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge in 1861, the venerable President Quincy, senior member of the Society, as…

A year ago Mr. James Elliot Cabot died, a good citizen of the Republic, a gentleman, brave, modest and kind, a thorough scholar, especially…

The perception of matter is made the common sense, and for cause. This was the cradle, this the go-cart, of the human child. We must learn…

Who does not delight in fine manners? Their charm cannot be predicted or overstated. ‘T is perpetual promise of more than can be fulfilled.…

I do not know any kind of history, except the event of a battle, to which people listen with more interest than to any anecdote of…

Men are made up of potencies. We are magnets in an iron globe. We have keys to all doors. We are all inventors, each sailing out on a…

A taste for fun is all but universal in our species, which is the only joker in nature. The rocks, the plants, the beasts, the birds,…

Whoever looks at the insect world, at flies, aphides, gnats, and innumerable parasites, and even at the infant mammals, must have remarked…

Address Read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, July 18, 1867.

To Baron von Hammer Purgstall, who died in Vienna in 1856, we owe our best knowledge of the Persians. He has translated into German,…

It was Watt who told King George III. that he dealt in an article of which kings were said to be fond,—Power. 'T is certain that the one…

There is a prize which we are all aiming at, and the more power and goodness we have, so much more the energy of that aim. Every human…

In the year 626 of our era, when Edwin, the Anglo-Saxon king, was deliberating on receiving the Christian missionaries, one of his nobles…