Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Man must have some recognized stake in society and affairs to knit him lovingly to his kind, or he is wont to revenge himself for wrongs real or imagined.

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

It doesn't matter how old people are. It matters if they love each other and have fun with each other. It has nothing to do with age. To get old is a mental disease. Everything is in the head.

Optimism means better than reality; pessimism means worse than reality. I'm a realist.

Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.

A tendency could not but arise to reconcile with Christian profession a good many modes of life, enjoyments, occupations, social actions and customs, from which the first Christians had recoiled.

Most of us don't want to be outsiders.

When you grow up as a minority in a majority culture, a lot of times, you're just trying to fit in.

As a 'parisien d'adoption,' I am only semicognizant of where I may fit at any given time into the French social fabric.

A sense of belonging is a sine qua non of healthy psychological functioning everywhere. Such a sense, beginning in infancy and continuing throughout life, comes about by experiencing mutual empathy; by sensing oneself as part of a whole, which recognizes and accepts that one is a member.

Bring into reality the possibility of the improbable by acquiring a positive mental attitude. Say to yourself, as Henry Ford said to his engineers, "Keep working!"

My writing, I am prepared to think, may be a substitute for something I have been born without - a so-called normal relation to society. My books are my relation to society.

The question of identity has separated from the issue of 'assimilation', having lost much of its drama and become, so to speak, a secular problem.

If the truth is told, things are just as bad as you yourself care to make them.

The music we listen to may not define who we are. But it’s a damn good start.

I must try to live in society and yet remain untouched by its pitfalls.

Pity is a sense of our own misfortunes in those of another man; it is a sort of foresight of the disasters which may befall ourselves. We assist others,, in order that they may assist us on like occasions; so that the services we offer to the unfortunate are in reality so many anticipated kindnesses to ourselves.

People adjust their behavior to fit the society they live in. They integrate because they have to. But what they are on the inside doesn't change.

It's not what is available or unavailable that determines your level of success and happiness; it's what you convince yourself is true.

I would warn any minority student today against the temptations of self-segregation: take support and comfort from your own group as you can, but don’t hide within it.

People often expect the other person to respond first in a positive way, instead of taking the initiative to create that possibility. I feel that's wrong; it can act as a barrier that just promotes a feeling of isolation from others. To overcome feelings of isolation and loneliness, your underlying attitude makes a tremendous difference - approaching others with the thought of compassion in your mind is the best way.

The psychotherapist ... tries to help the individual to be himself and to go it alone without giving unnecessary offense to his community, to be in the world (of social convention) but not of the world.

Fairy tales begin with conflict because we all begin our lives with conflict. We are all misfit for the world, and somehow we must fit in, fit in with other people, and thus we must invent or find the means through communication to satisfy as well as resolve conflicting desires and instincts.

Men fear that becoming 'we' will erase his 'I.' For women, our 'we' is our saving grace Women's relationships are like a renewable source of power.

I never had secure, belonging feelings with this society [in China].