If you want to be successful then these Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes are full of timeless wisdom.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a gifted writer and brilliant man who spent most of his life trying to find answers to life’s most greatest questions.
With his extraordinary gift as a writer, lecturer and a poet that extends well into our modern age, he was seen as a champion of individualism and considered by scholars as a transcendentalist. He is still regularly studied today and is widely regarded as one of America’s most important intellectuals who was ahead of his time.
He wrote on a number of subjects and in 1836 published his landmark essay Nature. He went on to publish the book Essays that included his famous essay called Self Reliance, which beyond a shadow of a doubt is full of wisdom and timeless essay quotes.
I’ve put together the best Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes that serve as success lessons and advice that will inspire you to be successful. Enjoy!
99 Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
1. “Write on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
2. “Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
3. “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have mastered, you will never grow.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
4. “By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little, you gain the great.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. “The world belongs to the energetic.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
6. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
7. “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
8. “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. “The first wealth is health.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
10. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
11. “In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
12. “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
13. “The reward of a thing well done is having done it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
14. “It is not length of life, but depth of life.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
15. “People only see what they are prepared to see.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
16. “Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
17. “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
18. “Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
19. “Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
20. “Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
21. “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
22. “Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
23. “With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
24. “As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
25. “Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
26. “Make yourself necessary to somebody.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
27. “The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
28. “Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
29. “What you are comes to you.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
30. “The ancestor of every action is a thought.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
31. “No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
32. “Nothing external to you has any power over you.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
33. “We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
34. “Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. He is by constitution expensive, and needs to be rich.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
35. “A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
36. “Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
37. “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
38. “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
39. “Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
40. “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
41. “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
42. “People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
43. “Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
44. “We aim above the mark to hit the mark.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
45. “All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
46. “To be great is to be misunderstood.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
47. “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
48. “Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force – that thoughts rule the world.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
49. “Always do what you are afraid to do.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
50. “Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
51. “Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
52. “An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
53. “We must be our own before we can be another’s.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
54. “Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
55. “A man is what he thinks about all day long.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
56. “He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
57. “As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
58. “This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
59. “No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
60. “We acquire the strength we have overcome.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
61. “Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
62. “As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
63. “Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
64. “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
65. “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
66. “Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
67. “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
68. “Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
69. “Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
70. “Envy is ignorance, Imitation is Suicide.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
71. “Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
72. “It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
73. “That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
74. “Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
75. “Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
76. “Fear always springs from ignorance.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
77. “When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, your’re the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
78. “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
79. “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
80. “The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
81. “Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
82. “Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
83. “Beware what you set your heart upon. For it surely shall be yours.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
84. “Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
85. “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
86. “Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
87. “No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
88. “Self-trust is the first secret to success.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
89. “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
90. “So far as a person thinks; they are free.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
91. “A man is a god in ruins.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
92. “Shallow people believe in luck and in circumstances; Strong people believe in cause and effect.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
93. “It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
94. “Every man is an impossibility until he is born.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
95. “Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
96. “All the great speakers were bad speaker at first.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
97. “No man can help another without helping himself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
98. “Good thoughts are no better than good dreams if you don’t follow through.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
99. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
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