Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

It is odd to think that there is a word for something which, strictly speaking, does not exist, namely, "rest." We distinguish between living and dead matter; between moving bodies and bodies at rest. This is a primitive point of view. What seems dead, a stone or the proverbial "door-nail," say, is actually forever in motion. We have merely become accustomed to judge by outward appearances; by the deceptive impressions we get through our senses.

What we think of as reality is a continuous synthesis of elements from a fixed hierarchy of a priori concepts and the ever changing data of the senses.

What we think of as physical reality is an intermingling of appropriate realities, a fluid massive consciousness in which each of us exists independently of each other and yet coexists interdependently with each other.

You must learn to heed your senses. Humans use but a tiny percentage of theirs. They barely look, they rarely listen, they never smell, and they think that they can only experience feelings through their skin. But they talk, oh, do they talk.

In my mind, I'm doing everything, but in reality, I'm doing very, very little. You come up with one idea, one moment, one line that leads to something and you feel like it's easy. And then, you sit back and think there would be no show without that.

This world, this universe which our senses feel, or our mind thinks, is but one atom, so to say, of the Infinite, projected on to the plane of consciousness; and within that narrow limit, defined by the network of consciousness, works our reason, and not beyond. Therefore, there must be some other instrument to take us beyond, and that instrument is called inspiration.

Reason is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.

Mind is the illusion that which is not but appears, and appears so much that you think that you are the mind.

Because waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking thoughts, I am well satisfied that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself awake.

Our consciousness, a startling outgrowth of the universe, is possibly its most important part, the fraction of existence that can think, feel, marvel at itself.

I think that people who can't believe in faeries aren't worth knowing. I just think that alternate realities make you a good writer. If your work is any more than one dimension, you believe in faeries.

The mind does not create what it perceives, any more than the eye creates the rose.

Life in the true sense is perceiving or thinking.

It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve.

Hold to the idea, "I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act," and each day the identification of yourself with thoughts and feelings will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself.

Ideas too are a life and a world.

All descriptions of matter are descriptions of modes of human perception within consciousness.

I'm absolutely convinced that this is a world of appearances, not reality. There's one reality and that's Light and Love. When some say, we create our own reality, I always demur and say, "Please, would you mind adjusting that a little bit? We create our own appearances." We become master of appearances and as we change our thought, we will see the appearances around us change. That gives us this huge sense of dominion and power and control over our world.

No one thought up being. He who thinks he has, step forward.

The world in which we live is the only world about which our senses can testify.

The whole life is a succession of dreams. My ambition is to be a conscious dreamer, that is all.

The one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know.

Life is a cutup. And to pretend that you write or paint in a timeless vacuum is just simply . . . not . . . true, not in accord with the facts of human perception.

Is the earth in our head? Or do we stand on the earth?

Thinking does not lead to truth; truth is the beginning of thought.