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An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought. A Right Action Seems To Fill The Eye, And To Be Related To All Nature.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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An Action Is The

Ralph Waldo Emerson
...
An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought. A Right Action Seems To Fill The Eye, And To Be Related To All Nature.

Understanding the Quote: "an action is the perfection and publication of thought. a right action..."

This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects deeply on the theme of eye. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Eye, Perfection, Action, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Ralph Waldo Emerson interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson is celebrated for insightful thoughts on eye and perfection. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Eye
Perfection
Action
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A Hero Is No Braver Than An Ordinary Man, But He Is Brave Five Minutes Longer.
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Earth
Wilderness
Daughter Of Time, The Hypocrite Days, Muffled And Dumb Like Barefoot Dervishes, And Marching Single In An Endless File, Bring Diadems And Fagots In Their Hands; To Each They Offer Gifts After His Will, Bread, Kingdom, Stars, And Sky That Holds Them All; I, In My Pleached Garden Watched The Pomp Forgot My Morning Wishes, Hastily Took A Few Herbs And Apples, And The Day Turned And Departed Silent. I Too Late Under Her Solemn Fillet Saw The Scorn.
Daughter
Morning
Stars
Tis The Good Reader That Makes The Good Book; In Every Book He Finds Passages Which Seem Confidences Or Asides Hidden From All Else And Unmistakenly Meant For His Ear; The Profit Of Books Is According To The Sensibility Of The Reader; The Profoundest Thought Or Passion Sleeps As In A Mine, Until It Is Discovered By An Equal Mind And Heart.
Book
Reading
Heart
Without The Great Arts Which Speak To The Sense Of Beauty, A Man Seems To Me A Poor, Naked, Shivering Creature. These Are His Becoming Draperies, Which Warm And Adorn Him.
Beauty
Art
Men
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.
Success
Lying
Hate
If There Be Any Man Who Thinks The Ruin Of A Race Of Men A Small Matter, Compared With The Last Decoration And Completions Of Hisown Comfort,--who Would Not So Much As Part With His Ice- Cream, To Save Them From Rapine And Manacles, I Think I Must Not Hesitate To Satisfy That Man That Also His Cream And Vanilla Are Safer And Cheaper By Placing The Negro Nation On A Fair Footing Than By Robbing Them.
Men
Thinking
Ice Cream
Society Is Frivolous, And Shreds Its Day Into Scraps, Its Conversation Into Ceremonies And Escapes.
Society
Conversation
Ceremony
Our Health Is Our Sound Relation To External Objects; Our Sympathy With External Being.
Sound
Sanity
Relation
And Truly It Demands Something Godlike In Him Who Cast Off The Common Motives Of Humanity And Ventured To Trust Himself For A Taskmaster.
Courage
Humanity
Individuality
Though We Love Goodness And Not Stealing, Yet Also We Love Freedom And Not Preaching.
Freedom
Stealing
Goodness
We Do Not Count A Man's Years Until He Has Nothing Else To Count.
Birthday
Time
Men
Our Moods Do Not Believe In Each Other.
Believe
Mood
Vacuity
America Is Another Name For Opportunity.
Opportunity
Names
America
Let The Reader Find That He Cannot Afford To Omit Any Line Of Your Writing Because You You Have Omitted Every Word That He Can Spare.
Writing
Lines
Reader
I Can Find My Biography In Every Fable That I Read.
Fiction
Literature
Biographies
Infancy Conforms To Nobody; All Conform To It.
Art
Philosophy
History
I Wish That Life Should Not Be Cheap, But Sacred. I Wish The Days To Be As Centuries, Loaded, Fragrant.
Life
Wish
Mindfulness
The Best Of Life Is Conversation.
Life Is
Conversation
I Think The Vice Of Our Housekeeping Is That It Does Not Hold Man Sacred. The Vice Of Government, The Vice Of Education, The Viceof Religion, Is One With That Of The Private Life.
Men
Thinking
Vices
Only By The Supernatural Is A Man Strong--only By Confiding In The Divinity Which Stirs Within Us. Nothing Is So Weak As An Egotist--nothing Is Mightier Than We, When We Are Vehicles Of A Truth Before Which The State And The Individual Are Alike Ephemeral.
Strong
Men
Divinity
The Heroic Soul Does Not Sell Its Justice And Its Nobleness.
Hero
Justice
Soul
The Other Terror That Scares Us From Self-trust Is Our Consistency; A Reverence For Our Past Act Or Word, Because The Eyes Of Others Have No Other Data For Computing Our Orbit Than Our Past Acts, And We Are Loath To Disappoint Them.
Hero
Eye
Past
We Must Trust Infinitely To The Beneficent Necessity Which Shines Through All Laws. Human Nature Expresses Itself In Them As Characteristically As In Statues, Or Songs, Or Railroads, And An Abstract Of The Codes Of Nations Would Be An Abstract Of The Common Conscience.
Song
Law
Shining
Up And Away For Life! Be Fleet!- The Frost-king Ties My Fumbling Feet, Sings In My Ears, My Hands Are Stones, Curdles The Blood To The Marble Bones, Tugs At The Heart-strings, Numbs The Sense, And Hems In Life With Narrowing Fence. Well, In This Broad Bed Lie And Sleep,- The Punctual Stars Will Vigil Keep,- Embalmed By Purifying Cold; The Winds Shall Sing Their Dead-march Old, The Snow Is No Ignoble Shroud, The Moon Thy Mourner, And The Cloud.
Stars
Kings
Lying
But Also The Constituency Determines The Vote Of The Representative. He Is Not Only Representative, But Participant. Like Can Onlybe Known By Like. The Reason Why He Knows About Them Is, That He Is Of Them; He Has Just Come Out Of Nature, Or From Being A Part Of The Thing.
Knowledge
Reason Why
Vote
There Are Two Classes Of Poets - The Poets By Education And Practice, These We Respect; And Poets By Nature, These We Love.
Love
Respect
Nature
We Have Feudal Governments In A Commercial Age. It Would Be But An Easy Extension Of Our Commercial System, To Pay A Private Emperor A Fee For Services, As We Pay An Architect, An Engineer, Or A Lawyer. If Any Man Has Talent For Righting Wrong, For Administering Difficult Affairs, For Counselling Poor Farmers How To Turn Their Estates To Good Husbandry, For Combining A Hundred Private Enterprises To A General Benefit, Let Him In The County- Town, Or In Court-street, Put Up His Sign-board, Mr. Smith, Governor, Mr. Johnson, Working King.
Leadership
Kings
Men
You Think That Your Silence On Certain Topics, Perhaps In The Face Of Injustice, Or Unkindness, Or Mean-spiritedness, Causes Others To Reserve Judgement Of You. Far Otherwise; Your Silence Utters Very Loud: You Have No Oracle To Speak, No Wisdom To Offer, And Your Fellow Men Have Learned That You Cannot Help Them. Doth Not Wisdom Cry, And Understanding Put Forth Her Voice? We Would Be Well To Do Likewise.
Kindness
Mean
Men
I Like The Church, I Like A Cowl, I Love A Prophet Of The Soul; And On My Heart Monastic Aisles Fall Like Sweet Strains Or Pensive Smiles; Yet Not For All His Faith Can See, Would I That Cowled Churchman Be.
Sweet
Fall
Heart
I Do Not Wish To Remove From My Present Prison To A Prison A Little Larger. I Wish To Break All Prisons.
Wish
Littles
Anarchy
Talent Finds Its Models, Methods, And Ends In Society, Exists For Exhibition, And Goes To The Soul Only For Power To Work. Genius Is Its Own End, And Draws Its Means And The Style Of Its Architecture From Within.
Work
Mean
Soul
If A Man Knew Anything, He Would Sit In A Corner And Be Modest; But He Is Such An Ignorant Peacock, That He Goes Bustling Up And Down, And Hits On Extraordinary Discoveries.
Men
Discovery
Ignorant
Bad Times Have A Scientific Value. These Are Occasions A Good Learner Would Not Miss.
Encouragement
Good Life
Learning
Every Burned Book Enlightens The World.
Book
World
Censorship
The Mind Does Not Create What It Perceives, Any More Than The Eye Creates The Rose.
Eye
Rose
Mind
The Instincts Of The Ant Are Very Unimportant, Considered As The Ants; But The Moment A Ray Of Relation Is Seen To Be A Monitor, A Little Body With A Mighty Heart, Then All Its Habits, Even That Said To Be Recently Observed, That It Never Sleeps, Become Sublime.
Heart
Sleep
Sublime
The Interminable Forests Should Become Graceful Parks, For Use And Delight.
Use
Delight
Parks
There Is Nothing Capricious In Nature And The Implanting Of A Desire Indicates That Its Gratification Is In The Constitution Of The Creature That Feel It.
Inspirational
Life
Nature
All Writing Is By The Grace Of God. People Do Not Deserve To Have Good Writing, They Are So Pleased With Bad. In These Sentences That You Show Me, I Can Find No Beauty, For I See Death In Every Clause And Every Word. There Is A Fossil Or A Mummy Character Which Pervades This Book. The Best Sepulchers, The Vastest Catacombs, Thebes And Cairo, Pyramids, Are Sepulchers To Me. I Like Gardens And Nurseries. Give Me Initiative, Spermatic, Prophesying, Man-making Words.
Book
Writing
Character
The Stars Awaken A Certain Reverence, Because Though Always Present, They Are Inaccessible; But All Natural Objects Make A Kindred Impression, When The Mind Is Open To Their Influence. Nature Never Wears A Mean Appearance. Neither Does The Wisest Man Extort Her Secret, And Lose His Curiosity By Finding Out All Her Perfection. Nature Never Became A Toy To A Wise Spirit. The Flowers, The Animals, The Mountains, Reflected The Wisdom Of His Best Hour, As Much As They Had Delighted The Simplicity Of His Childhood.
Wise
Stars
Flower
Only Be Admonished By What You Already See, Not To Strike Leagues Of Friendship With Cheap Persons, Where No Friendship Can Be. Our Impatience Betrays Us Into Rash And Foolish Alliances Which No God Attends.
Friendship
League
No Friends
Talent Is Commonly Developed At The Expense Of Character.
Character
Talent
Sensuality
Those Who Listened To Lord Chatham Felt That There Was Something Finer In The Man, Than Anything Which He Said.
Character
Self Confidence
Men
Far Or Forgot To Me Is Near; Shadow And Sunlight Are The Same; The Vanished Gods To Me Appear; And One To Me Are Shame And Fame.they Reckon Ill Who Leave Me Out; When Me They Fly, I Am The Wings; I Am The Doubter And The Doubt, And I The Hymn The Brahmin Sings.
Death
Wings
Hymns
You Have First An Instinct, Then An Opinion, Then A Knowledge, As The Plant Has Root, Bud, And Fruit.
Knowledge
Roots
Progress
A Man Should Learn To Detect And Watch That Gleam Of Light Which Flashes Across His Mind From Within, More Than The Lustre Of The Firmament Of Bards And Sages. Yet He Dismisses Without Notice His Thought, Because It Is His. In Every Work Of Genius We Recognize Our Own Rejected Thoughts: They Come Back To Us With A Certain Alienated Majesty.
Men
Light
Self Reliance
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