Ralph Waldo Emerson Success Quotations

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.

The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'always do what you are afraid to do.'

Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.

The secret of success in education is respecting the students.

Patience and fortitude conquer all things.

Self-trust is the first secret of success.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

Children are all foreigners.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

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.

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.

Continual failure is a road to success - if you have the strength to go on.

One thing is forever good; That one thing is Success.

That you are fair or wise is vain, Or strong, or rich, or generous; You must have also the untaught strain That sheds beauty on the rose.

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

I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies.

The secret of success in society is a certain heartiness and sympathy. A man who is not happy in company, cannot find any word in his memory that will fit the occasion; all his information is a little impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds in every turn of the conversation occasions for the introduction of what he has to say. The favorites of society are able men, and of more spirit than wit, who have no uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and the company, contended and contenting.

Sanity consists in not being subdued by your means. Fancy prices are paid for position, and for the culture of talent, but to thegrand interests, superficial success is of no account.

Whilst all the world is in pursuit of power, culture corrects the theory of success.

Success goes thus invariably with a certain plus or positive power: an ounce of power must balance an ounce of weight.

Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design;--and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of clients.

Men of extraordinary success, in their honest moments, have always sung, "Not unto us, not unto us." According to the faith of their times, they have built altars to Fortune, or to Destiny, or to St. Julian. Their success lay in their parallelism to the course of thought, which found in them an unobstructed channel; and the wonders of which they were the visible conductors seemed to their eye their deed.

The secret of success lies never in the amount of money, but in the relation of income to outgo.

The greater speed and success that distinguish the planting of the human race in this country, over all other plantations in history, owe themselves mainly to the new subdivisions of the State into small corporations of land and power.

No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.

Meet your failure nobly, and it will not differ from success.

Success in your work, the finding a better method, the better understanding that insures the better performing is hat and coat, is food and wine, is fire and horse and health and holiday. At least, I find that any success in my work has the effect on my spirits of all these.

A strenuous soul hates cheap success.

Character is that which can do without success.

The never-ending task of self improvement.

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply.

Begin and proceed on a settled conviction that but little is permitted to any man to do or to know, and if he complies with the first grand laws, he shall do well.

The secret of success in society is a certain heartiness and sympathy.

Life is not measured by its length, but by its depth.

I fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all points to the real and wholesome success. One adores public opinion, the other, private opinion; one, fame, the other, desert; one, feats, the other, humility; one, lucre, the other, love; one, monopoly, and the other, hospitality of mind.

All great successes are the triumph of persistence.

No power of genius has ever yet had the smallest success in explaining existence. The perfect enigma remains.

To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch...

We live in a system of approximations. Every end is prospective of some other end, which is also temporary; a round and final success nowhere. We are encamped in nature, not domesticated.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

Men are what their mothers made them.

Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

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.