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Men Imagine That They Communicate Their Virtue Or Vice Only By Overt Actions, And Do Not See That Virtue Or Vice Emit A Breath Every Moment.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Men Imagine That They

Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Men Imagine That They Communicate Their Virtue Or Vice Only By Overt Actions, And Do Not See That Virtue Or Vice Emit A Breath Every Moment.

Understanding the Quote: "men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt..."

This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects deeply on the theme of hero. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Hero, Men, Vices, 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 hero and men. 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
Hero
Men
Vices
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For It Is Not Metres, But A Metre-making Argument That Makes A Poem, - A Thought So Passionate And Alive That Like The Spirit Of A Plant Or An Animal It Has An Architecture Of Its Own, And Adorns Nature With A New Thing.
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By His Machines Man Can Dive And Remain Under Water Like A Shark; Can Fly Like A Hawk In The Air; Can See Atoms Like A Gnat; Can See The System Of The Universe Of Uriel, The Angel Of The Sun; Can Carry Whatever Loads A Ton Of Coal Can Lift; Can Knock Down Cities With His Fist Of Gunpowder; Can Recover The History Of His Race By The Medals Which The Deluge, And Every Creature, Civil Or Savage Or Brute, Has Involuntarily Dropped Of Its Existence; And Divine The Future Possibility Of The Planet And Its Inhabitants By His Perception Of Laws Of Nature.
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Every Man Supposes Himself Not To Be Fully Understood Or Appreciated.
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Freedom Is Not The Right To Do As You Please, But The Liberty To Do As You Should.
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Speak What You Think Today In Hard Words And Tomorrow Speak What Tomorrow Thinks In Hard Words Again, Though It Contradict Every Thing You Said Today.
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What Is Civilization? I Answer, The Power Of Good Women.
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The History Of Reform Is Always Identical; It Is The Comparison Of The Idea With The Fact. Our Modes Of Living Are Not Agreeable To Our Imagination. We Suspect They Are Unworthy. We Arraign Our Daily Employments.
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Nor Sequent Centuries Could Hit Orbit And Sum Of Shakspeare's Wit. The Men Who Lived With Him Became Poets, For The Air Was Fame.
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Make Your Own Bible. Select And Collect All The Words And Sentences That In All Your Readings Have Been To You Like The Blast Of A Trumpet.
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I Hate The Prostitution Of The Name Of Friendship To Signify Modish And Worldly Alliances.
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Men
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Men
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Mind
Half A Man's Wisdom Goes With His Courage.
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Chiefly The Sea-shore Has Been The Point Of Departure To Knowledge, As To Commerce. The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most.
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Departure
Commerce
I--this Thought Which Is Called I--is The Mould Into Which The World Is Poured Like Melted Wax.
Self
World
Mould
A Sage Is The Instructor Of A Hundred Ages.
Intelligent
Age
Hundred
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Time
Danger
Calamity
The Intellect Searches Out The Absolute Order Of Things As They Stand In The Mind Of God, And Without The Colors Of Affection. The Intellectual And The Active Powers Seem To Succeed Each Other, And The Exclusive Activity Of The One Generates The Exclusive Activity Of The Other. There Is Something Unfriendly In Each To The Other, But They Are Like The Alternate Periods Of Feeding And Working In Animals; Each Prepares And Will Be Followed By The Other.
Knowledge
Animal
Order
Universally, The Better Gold The Worse Man. The Political Economist Defies Us To Show Any Gold Mine Country That Is Traversed By Good Roads, Or A Shore Where Pearls Are Found On Which Good Schools Are Erected.
Country
School
Men
Let A Man Then Know His Worth And Keep Things Under His Feet.
Respect
Men
Feet
"do Not Call Yourself An "artist-photographer" And Make "artist-painters" And "artist-sculptors" Laugh; Call Yourself A Photographer And Wait For Artists To Call You Brother."
Photography
Brother
Artist
In The Greek Cities, It Was Reckoned Profane, That Any Person Should Pretend A Property In A Work Of Art, Which Belonged To All Who Could Behold It.
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Cities
Greek
I Am Ready To Die Out Of Nature, And Be Born Again Into This New Yet Unapproachable America I Have Found In The West.
America
Dying
United States
Nature Is What You May Do. There Is Much You May Not Do.
Inspirational
Nature
May
The Sea Is Masculine, The Type Of Active Strength. Look, What Egg-shells Are Drifting All Over It, Each One, Like Ours, Filled With Men In Ecstasies Of Terror, Alternating With Cockney Conceit, As The Sea Is Rough Or Smooth. Is This Sad-colored Circle An Eternal Cemetery?
Men
Sea
Circles
In Every Company, There Is Not Only The Active And Passive Sex, But, In Both Men And Women, A Deeper And More Important Sex Of Mind, Namely, The Inventive Or Creative Class Of Both Men And Women, And The Uninventive Or Accepting Class.
Leadership
Sex
Men
For The Existing World Is Not A Dream, And Cannot With Impunity Be Treated As A Dream; Neither Is It A Disease; But It Is The Ground On Which You Stand, It Is The Mother Of Whom You Were Born.
Mother
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World
Do Not Craze Yourself With Thinking, But Go About Your Business Anywhere.
Thoughtful
Thinking
Craze
Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year. No Man Has Learned Anything Rightly, Until He Knows That Every Day Is Doomsday.
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Inspirational Life
We Forget Ourselves And Our Destinies In Health, And The Chief Use Of Temporary Sickness Is To Remind Us Of These Concerns.
Health
Destiny
Use
No Law Can Be Sacred To Me But That Of My Nature. Good And Bad Are But Names Very Readily Transferable To That Or This; The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.
Nature
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Names
Society Has No Bribe For Me.
Bribe
It Is The Essence Of Poetry To Spring, Like The Rainbow Daughter Of Wonder, From The Invisible, To Abolish The Past, And Refuse All History.
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Spring
Past
Good Churches Are Not Built By Bad Men; At Least, There Must Be Probity And Enthusiasm Somewhere In The Society. These Minsters Were Neither Built Nor Filled By Atheists.
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Men
Religion
Shallow Men Believe In Luck. Strong Men Believe In Cause And Effect.
Inspirational
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Being Strong
Truth Is Too Simple For Us: We Do Not Like Those Who Unmask Our Illusions.
Truth
Simple
Simplicity
I Know Nothing Which Life Has To Offer So Satisfying As The Profound Good Understanding, Which Can Subsist, After Much Exchange Ofgood Offices, Between Two Virtuous Men, Each Of Whom Is Sure Of Himself, And Sure Of His Friend. It Is A Happiness Which Postpones All Other Gratifications, And Makes Politics, And Commerce, And Churches, Cheap.
Friendship
Men
Two
I Do Not Hesitate To Read. All Good Books In Translations. What Is Really Best In Any Book Is Translatable-any Real Insight Or Broad Human Sentiment.
Real
Book
Language
Every Man Is A Quotation From All His Ancestors.
Men
Heirlooms
Forests
Hospitality Consists In A Little Fire, A Little Food, And An Immense Quiet
Love
Friendship
Relationship
Every Man Finds A Sanction For His Simplest Claims And Deeds, In Decisions Of His Own Mind, Which He Calls Truth And Holiness.
Truth
Men
Decision
All The Thoughts Of A Turtle Are Turtle
Turtles
Our Prayers Are Prophets.
Prayer
Prophet
Our Prayers
The Person Who Screams, Or Uses The Superlative Degree, Or Converses With Heat Puts Whole Drawing-rooms To Flight. If You Wish To Be Loved, Love Measure.
Drawing
Wish
Degrees
Never Self-possessed, Or Prudent, Love Is All Abandonment.
Love
Self
Prudent
I Think No Virtue Goes With Size.
Thinking
Size
Virtue
How Much Of Human Life Is Lost In Waiting.
Life
Waiting
Losing
It Is Said That The World Is In A State Of Bankruptcy, That The World Owes The World More Than The World Can Pay.
Debt
World
Pay
The Less A Man Thinks Or Knows About His Virtues, The Better We Like Him.
Men
Thinking
Virtue
The Virtue You Would Like To Have, Assume It Is Already Yours, Appropriate It, Enter Into The Part And Live The Character Just As The Great Actor Is Absorbed In... The Part He Plays.
Character
Play
Actors
Every Ship Is A Romantic Object, Except That We Sail In.
Romance
Ships
Sail
The Search After The Great Men Is The Dream Of Youth, And The Most Serious Occupation Of Manhood.
Dream
Greatness
Men
All Is A Riddle, And The Key To A Riddle...is Another Riddle.
Keys
Criminal Mind
Riddle
In Every Society Some Men Are Born To Rule, And Some To Advise.
Happy Friday
Men
Advice
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 Embosomed In Beauty.
Life
Philosophical
Reflection
Our Young People Are Diseased With The Theological Problems Of Original Sin, Origin Of Evil, Predestination, And The Like. These Never Presented A Practical Difficulty To Any Man,--never Darkened Across Any Man's Road, Who Did Not Go Out Of His Way To Seek Them. These Are The Soul's Mumps, And Measles, And Whooping- Coughs, And Those Who Have Not Caught Them Cannot Describe Their Health Or Prescribe A Cure. A Simple Mind Will Not Know These Enemies.
Men
Simple
Worry
Our Fear Of Death Is Like Our Fear That Summer Will Be Short, But When We Have Had Our Swing Of Pleasure, Our Fill Of Fruit, And Our Swelter Of Heat, We Say We Have Had Our Day.
Death
Summer
July
The Universe Is Represented In Every One Of It's Particles. Everything Is Made Of One Hidden Stuff. The World Globes Itself In A Drop Of Dew. The True Doctrine Of Omnipresence Is That God Appears With All His Parts In Every Moss And Cobweb.
Moss
Dew
Doctrine
Good Writing Is A Kind Of Skating Which Carries Off The Performer Where He Would Not Go, And Is Only Right Admirable When To All Its Beauty And Speed A Subserviency To The Will, Like That Of Walking, Is Added.
Writing
Skating
Kind
Our Civility, England Determines The Style Of, Inasmuch As England Is The Strongest Of The Family Of Existing Nations, And As We Are The Expansion Of That People. It Is That Of A Trading Nation; It Is A Shopkeeping Civility. The English Lord Is A Retired Shopkeeper, And Has The Prejudices And Timidities Of That Profession.
People
Style
Expansion
Free Should Be The Scholar - Free And Brave.
Teaching
Brave
Should
People Wish To Be Settled; Only As Far As They Are Unsettled Is There Any Hope For Them.
Change
Hope
Self Esteem
Dear To Us Are Those Who Love Us... But Dearer Are Those Who Reject Us As Unworthy, For They Add Another Life; They Build A Heaven Before Us Whereof We Had Not Dreamed, And Thereby Supply To Us New Powers Out Of The Recesses Of The Spirit, And Urge Us To New And Unattempted Performances.
Love
Heaven
Rejection
Love And You Shall Be Loved. All Love Is Mathematically Just, As Much As Two Sides Of An Algebraic Equation.
Love
Romantic
Girlfriend
One Man's Justice Is Another's Injustice; One Man's Beauty Another's Ugliness; One Man's Wisdom Anpther's Folly.
Wisdom
Men
Justice
The Best University That Can Be Recommended To A Man Of Ideas Is The Gauntlet Of The Mob.
Men
Ideas
University
Things Are Pretty, Graceful, Rich, Elegant, Handsome, But, Until They Speak To The Imagination, Not Yet Beautiful.
Beauty
Beautiful
Imagination
We Must Be Courteous To A Man As We Are To A Picture, Which We Are Willing To Give The Advantage Of A Good Light.
Men
Light
Giving
We Resent All Criticism Which Denies Us Anything That Lies In Our Line Of Advance.
Lying
Criticism
Lines
Neither Is Life Long Enough For Friendship. That Is A Serious And Majestic Affair.
Friendship
Long
Serious
Throw A Stone Into The Stream And The Ripples That Propagate Themselves Are The Beautiful Type Of All Influence.
Beautiful
Stones
Influence
The Eye Is The Painter And The Ear The Singer.
Eye
Ears
Singers
A Beautiful Soul Always Dwells In A Beautiful World.
Beautiful
Soul
World
In Old Persons, When Thus Fully Expressed, We Often Observe A Fair, Plump, Perennial Waxen Complexion, Which Indicates That All The Ferment Of Earlier Days Has Subsided Into Serenity Of Thought And Behavior.
Serenity
Age
Behavior
The Intellectual Life May Be Kept Clean And Healthful, If Man Will Live The Life Of Nature, And Not Import Into His Mind Difficulties Which Are None Of His.
Live Life
Men
Intellectual
There Is A Principle Which Is The Basis Of Things, Which All Speech Aims To Say, And All Action To Evolve, A Simple, Quiet, Undescribed, Undescribable Presence, Dwelling Very Peacefully In Us, Our Rightful Lord: We Are Not To Do, But To Let Do; Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon.
Simple
Dwelling
Principles
There Are Moods In Which We Court Suffering, In The Hope That Here, At Least, We Shall Find Reality, Sharp Peaks And Edges Of Truth. But It Turns Out To Be Scene-painting And Counterfeit. The Only Thing Grief Has Taught Me Is To Know How Shallow It Is.
Pain
Grief
Reality
The Greatest Difficulty Is That Men Do Not Think Enough Of Themselves, Do Not Consider What It Is That They Are Sacrificing When They Follow In A Herd, Or When They Cater For Their Establishment.
Respect
Self Esteem
Sacrifice
You Need Not Fear To Handle The Truth Roughly. She Is No Invalid.
Truth
Needs
Handle
That Which We Call Sin In Others Is Experiment For Us.
Libertarian
Spirituality
Sin
Evermore In The World Is This Marvelous Balance Of Beauty And Disgust, Magnificence And Rats.
Beauty
Balance
World
A Child Is A Curly, Dimpled Lunatic.
Motivational
Baby
Children
Ever The Words Of The Gods Resound; But The Porches Of Man's Ear Seldom In This Low Life's Round Are Unsealed, That He May Hear.
Loss
Men
Ears
I Like To Have A Person's Knowledge Comprehend More Than One Class Of Topics, One Row Of Shelves. I Like A Person Who Likes To See A Fine Barn As Well As A Good Tragedy.
Knowledge
Class
Tragedy
It Has Been The Office Of Art To Educate The Perception Of Beauty. We Are Immersed In Beauty But Our Eyes Have No Clear Vision.
Beauty
Art
Eye
Greek Architecture Is The Flowering Of Geometry.
Greek
Architecture
Geometry
The Reverence For The Scriptures Is An Element Of Civilization, For Thus Has The History Of The World Been Preserved, And Is Preserved.
Bible
Civilization
History
People Only See What They Are Prepared To See. If You Look For What Is Good And What You Can Be Grateful For You Will Find It Everywhere.
Gratitude
Grateful
People
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
He Is The Rich Man In Whom The People Are Rich, And He Is The Poor Man In Whom The People Are Poor; And How To Give Access To Themasterpieces Of Art And Nature, Is The Problem Of Civilization.
Art
Men
Civilization
The World Is Upheld By The Veracity Of Good Men: They Make The Earth Wholesome. They Who Lived With Them Found Life Glad And Nutritious. Life Is Sweet And Tolerable Only In Our Belief In Such Society.
Life
Sweet
Men
Skepticism Is Slow Suicide.
Suicide
Suicidal
Skepticism
The Riddle Of The Age Has For Each A Private Solution.
Age
Individual
Riddle
Self-trust Is The First Secret Of Success.
Motivational
Success
Trust
Infancy Conforms To Nobody; All Conform To It.
Art
Philosophy
History
The Writer, Like A Priest, Must Be Exempted From Secular Labor. His Work Needs A Frolic Health; He Must Be At The Top Of His Condition.
Needs
Authorship
Priests
It Is Curious That Christianity, Which Is Idealism, Is Sturdily Defended By The Brokers, And Steadily Attacked By The Idealists.
Christian
Curious
Idealism
Go Cherish Your Soul; Express Companions; Set Your Habits To A Life Of Solitude; Then Will The Faculties Rise Fair And Full Within.
Soul
Solitude
Cherish
The World Is His Who Can See Through Its Pretension.
World
Deafness
American Scholar
We May Climb Into The Thin And Cold Realm Of Pure Geometry And Lifeless Science, Or Sink Into That Of Sensation. Between These Extremes Is The Equator Of Life, Of Thought, Or Spirit, Or Poetry,--a Narrow Belt.
Science
Poetry
May
The Poet, The Painter, The Sculptor, The Musican, The Architect, Seek Each To Concentrate This Radiance Of The World On One Point, And Each In His Several Work To Satisfy The Love Of Beauty Which Stimulates Him To Produce.
Radiance
World
Satisfaction
I Am Become A Transparent Eyeball.
Spiritual
Eyeballs
Transparent
Accept The Place The Divine Providence Has Found For You, The Society Of Your Contemporaries, The Connection Of Events.
Acceptance
Events
Connections
It Is Plain That There Is No Separate Essence Called Courage, No Cup Or Cell In The Brain, No Vessel In The Heart Containing Drops Or Atoms That Make Or Give This Virtue; But It Is The Right Or Healthy State Of Every Man, When He Is Free To Do That Which Is Constitutional To Him To Do.
Courage
Heart
Men
No Man Should Travel Until He Has Learned The Language Of The Country He Visits. Otherwise He Voluntarily Makes Himself A Great Baby - So Helpless And So Ridiculous.
Country
Baby
Witty
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
Manners Aim To Facilitate Life, To Get Rid Of Impediments, And Bring The Man Pure To Energize. They Aid Our Dealing And Conversation, As A Railway Aids Travelling, By Getting Rid Of All Avoidable Obstructions Of The Road, And Leaving Nothing To Be Conquered But Pure Space.
Men
Space
Leaving
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