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Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Beware Of Too Much

Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.

Understanding the Quote: "beware of too much good staying in your hand. it will fast..."

This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects deeply on the theme of hands. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Hands, Pay, Too Much, 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 hands and pay. 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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Hands
Pay
Too Much
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Had I But Written As Many Odes In Praise Of Muhammad And Ali As I Have Composed For King Mahmud, They Would Have Showered A Hundred Blessings On Me.
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Brother
Father
Painting Seems To Be To The Eye What Dancing Is To The Limbs. When That Has Educated The Frame To Self-possession, To Nimbleness,to Grace, The Steps Of The Dancing-master Are Better Forgotten; So Painting Teaches Me The Splendor Of Color And The Expression Of Form, And As I See Many Pictures And Higher Genius In The Art, I See The Boundless Opulence Of The Pencil, The Indifferency In Which The Artist Stands Free To Choose Out Of The Possible Forms.
Dance
Art
Eye
A Man Is Reputed To Have Thought And Eloquence; He Cannot, For All That, Say A Word To His Cousin Or His Uncle. They Accuse His Silence With As Much Reason As They Would Blame The Insignificance Of A Dial In The Shade. In The Sun It Will Mark The Hour. Among Those Who Enjoy His Thought, He Will Regain His Tongue.
Cousin
Uncles
Men
No Member Of A Crew Is Praised For The Rugged Individuality Of His Rowing.
Sports
Teamwork
Individuality
Englands Genius Filled All Measureof Heart And Soul, Of Strength And Pleasure,gave To The Mind Its Emperor,and Life Was Larger Than Before:nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeares Wit. The Men Who Lived With Him Becamepoets, For The Air Was Fame.
Heart
Men
Air
Next To The Originator Of A Good Sentence Is The First Quoter Of It. Many Will Read The Book Before One Thinks Of Quoting A Passage. As Soon As He Has Done This, That Line Will Be Quoted East And West.
Book
Thinking
East
Proverbs Are The Literature Of Reason, Or The Statements Of Absolute Truth, Without Qualification. Like The Sacred Books Of Each Nation, They Are The Sanctuary Of Its Intuitions.
Book
Intuition
Literature
So Nigh Is Grandeur To Our Dust, So Near Is God To Man, When Duty Whispers Low, 'thou Must,' The Youth Whispers, 'i Can.
Men
Dust
Youth
All Science Has One Aim, Namely, To Find A Theory Of Nature.
Self Reliance
Theory
Aim
It Is For Want Of Self-culture That The Superstition Of Travelling, Whose Idols Are Italy, England, Egypt, Retains Its Fascinationfor All Educated Americans.
Travel
Egypt
Self
Genius Appeals To The Future.
Future
Genius
Appeals
Health Is The First Muse, Comprising The Magical Benefits Of Air, Landscape, And Bodily Exercise On The Mind.
Health
Exercise
Air
Such Is The Active Power Of Good Temperament! Great Sweetness Of Temper Neutralizes Such Vast Amounts Of Acid.
Acid
Temper
Sweetness
Genius Is Always Sufficiently The Enemy Of Genius By Over Influence. The Literature Of Every Nation Bear Me Witness. The English Dramatic Poets Have Shakspearized Now For Two Hundred Years.
Years
Two
Enemy
For All Our Penny-wisdom, For All Our Soul-destroying Slavery To Habit, It Is Not To Be Doubted That All Men Have Sublime Thoughts; That All Men Value The Few Real Hours Of Life; They Love To Be Heard; They Love To Be Caught Up Into The Vision Of Principles. We Mark With Light In The Memory The Few Interviews We Have Had, In The Dreary Years Of Routine And Of Sin, With Souls That Made Our Souls Wiser; That Spoke What We Thought; That Told Us What We Knew; That Gave Us Leave To Be What We Only Were.
Memories
Real
Character
What I Must Do Is All That Concerns Me, Not What People Think. This Rule,equally Arduous In Actual And Intellectual Life, May Serve For The Whole Distinction Between Greatness And Meanness. It Is The Harder, Because You Will Always Find Those Who Think They Know What Is Your Duty Better Than You Know It. 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.
Learning
Greatness
Men
He Is Great Who Confers The Most Benefits.
Benefits
A Sympathetic Person Is Placed In The Dilemma Of A Swimmer Among Drowning Men, Who All Catch At Him, And If He Gives So Much As A Leg Or A Finger, They Will Drown Him.
Sympathy
Men
Giving
Cunning Is Strength Withheld.
Strength
Cunning
Man Is Priest, And Scholar, And Statesman, And Producer, And Soldier. In The Divided Or Social State These Functions Are Parcelled Out To Individuals, Each Of Whom Aims To Do His Stint Of The Joint Work, Whilst Each Other Performs His.
Men
Soldier
Joints
Every Great And Commanding Movement In The Annals Of The World Is Due To The Triumph Of Enthusiasm. Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without It
Enthusiasm For Life
Triumph
Movement
O, When I Am Safe In My Sylvan Home, I Mock At The Pride Of Greece And Rome; And When I Am Stretch'd Beneath The Pines When The Evening Star So Holy Shines, I Laugh At The Lore And Pride Of Man, At The Sophist's Schools, And The Learned Clan; For What Are They All In Their High Conceit, When Man In The Bush With God May Meet?
Country
Stars
Home
I Have Heard With Admiring Submission The Experience Of The Lady Who Declared That The Sense Of Being Well Dressed Gives A Feeling Of Inward Tranquility Which Religion Is Powerless To Bestow.
Fashion
Clothes
Giving
Every Known Fact In Natural Science Was Divined By The Presentiment Of Somebody, Before It Was Actually Verified.
Native American
Facts
Natural
The Good Husband Finds Method As Efficient In The Packing Of Fire-wood In A Shed, Or In The Harvesting Of Fruits In The Cellar, As In Peninsular Campaigns Or The Files Of The Department Of State.
Husband
Fire
Campaigns
You Cannot Make A Cheap Palace.
Palaces
Strategy
Those Who Listened To Lord Chatham Felt That There Was Something Finer In The Man, Than Anything Which He Said.
Character
Self Confidence
Men
There Will Always Be In Society Certain Persons Who Are Mercuries Of Its Approbation, And Whose Glance Will At Any Time Determinefor The Curious Their Standing In The World. These Are The Chamberlains Of The Lesser Gods. Accept Their Coldness As An Omen Of Grace With The Loftier Deities, And Allow Them All Their Privilege.
Grace
World
Mercury
Some Books Leave Us Free And Some Books Make Us Free.
Book
Reading
Books And Reading
Every Day, The Sun; And, After Sunset, Night And Her Stars. Ever The Winds Blow; Ever The Grass Grows. Every Day, Men And Women, Conversing, Beholding And Beholden. The Scholar Is He Of All Men Whom This Spectacle Most Engages. He Must Settle Its Value In His Mind. What Is Nature To Him?
Stars
Sunset
Blow
The Beautiful Rests On The Foundations Of The Necessary.
Beauty
Beautiful
Foundation
Great Hearts Steadily Send Forth The Secret Forces That Incessantly Draw Great Events.
Positive
Heart
Law Of Attraction
Words Are Also Actions, And Actions Are A Kind Of Words.
Character
Action
Kind
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.
Success
Beauty
Wise
Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet.
Motivational
Book
Beer
There Is Always A Best Way Of Doing Everything.
Excellence
Way
Best Way
Though We Love Goodness And Not Stealing, Yet Also We Love Freedom And Not Preaching.
Freedom
Stealing
Goodness
The Cannon Will Not Suffer Any Other Sound To Be Heard For Miles And For Years Around It.
Years
Suffering
Sound
If Two Or Three Persons Should Come With A High Spiritual Aim And With Great Powers, The World Would Fall Into Their Hands Like A Ripe Peach.
Spiritual
Business
Fall
The Colleges, While They Provide Us With Libraries, Furnish No Professors Of Books; And I Think No Chair Is So Much Needed.
Book
College
Thinking
I Have No Expectation That Any Man Will Read History Aright Who Thinks That What Was Done In A Remote Age, By Men Whose Names Have Resounded Far, Has Any Deeper Sense Than What He Is Doing Today.
Men
Thinking
Names
Self-love Is, In Almost All Men, Such An Over-weight That They Are Incredulous Of A Man's Habitual Preference Of The General Good To His Own; But When They See It Proved By Sacrifices Of Ease, Wealth, Rank, And Of Life Itself, There Is No Limit To Their Admiration.
Sacrifice
Love Is
Men
All Men Are Poets At Heart.
Heart
Men
Poet
Wherever Snow Falls, Or Water Flows, Or Birds Fly, Wherever Day And Night Meet In Twilight, Wherever The Blue Heaven Is Hung By Clouds, Or Sown With Stars, Wherever Are Forms With Transparent Boundaries, Wherever Are Outlets Into Celestial Space, Wherever Is Danger, And Awe, And Love, There Is Beauty, Plenteous As Rain, Shed For Thee, And Though Thou Shouldest Walk The World Over, Thou Shalt Not Be Able To Find A Condition Inopportune Or Ignoble.
Beauty
Stars
Rain
Self-command Is The Main Elegance.
Character
Self
Elegance
A Man's Fortunes Are The Fruit Of His Character. A Man's Friends Are His Magnetisms.
Friends
Character
Fate
Nature Is A Language And Every New Fact One Learns Is A New Word; But It Is Not A Language Taken To Pieces And Dead In The Dictionary, But The Language Put Together Into A Most Significant And Universal Sense. I Wish To Learn This Language - Not That I May Know A New Grammar, But That I May Read The Great Book Which Is Written In That Tongue.
Nature
Book
Taken
Man Sheds Grief As His Skin Sheds Rain.
Grief
Rain
Men
Why Need I Volumes, If One Word Suffice?
Needs
Volume
Need Sleep
The Civility Of The World Has Reached That Pitch That Their More Moral Genius Is Becoming Indispensable, And The Quality Of This Race Is To Be Honored For Itself.
Race
Quality
Genius
There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men. Every Man Is An Inlet To The Same And To All Of The Same.
Men
Self
Mind
Sunday Is The Core Of Our Civilization, Dedicated To Thought And Reverence.
Sunday
Civilization
Sabbath
I Am Not Engaged To Christianity By Decent Forms, Or Saving Ordinances; It Is Not Usage, It Is Not What I Do Not Understand, That Binds Me To It -- Let These Be The Sandy Foundations Of Falsehoods. What I Revere And Obey In It Is Its Reality, Its Boundless Charity, Its Deep Interior Life, The Rest It Gives To My Mind, The Echo It Returns To My Thoughts, The Perfect Accord It Makes With My Reason Through All Its Representation Of God And His Providence; And The Persuasion And Courage That Come Out Thence To Lead Me Upward And Onward.
Reality
Echoes
Giving
The Learned And The Studious Of Thought Have No Monopoly Of Wisdom. Their Violence Of Direction In Some Degree Disqualifies Them To Think Truly.
Thinking
Degrees
Violence
We Cannot Let Our Angels Go; We Do Not See That They Only Go Out That Archangels May Come In.
Angel
May
Archangel
The Eye Is The Painter And The Ear The Singer.
Eye
Ears
Singers
The Masters Painted For Joy, And Knew Not That Virtue Had Gone Out Of Them. They Could Not Paint The Like In Cold Blood. The Masters Of English Lyric Wrote Their Songs So. It Was A Fine Efflorescence Of Fine Powers.
Song
Blood
Joy
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