Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

It is by character and not by intellect the world is won.

Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above is character.

Virtue is an inner strength. It expands your nature.

Moral courage is higher and a rarer virtue than physical courage.

Don't worry so much about your self-esteem. Worry more about your character. Integrity is its own reward.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

Good men have the fewest fears. He has but one great fear who fears to do wrong; he has a thousand who has overcome it.

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.

It is a great thing to have a big brain, a fertile imagination, grand ideals, but the man with these, bereft of a good backbone, is sure to serve no useful end.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

A man's character is his guardian divinity.

My beliefs will run through everything I do. My beliefs, my values are my anchor and when people try to drag me, as I know they will, it is to that sense of right and wrong, that sense of who I am and what I believe, to which I will always hold.

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It's not hard. Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking.

There are a lot of smart people in politics and government, but character matters ... it is terribly important that the two be melded.

He was as great as a man can be without morality

The greatest man is he who chooses the Right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering. I believe this greatness to be most common among the multitude, whose names are never heard.

Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function; living is the functionary.

What will tell in the end will be character and not a knowledge of letters.

One of the most important lessons that experience teaches is that, on the whole, success depends more upon character than upon either intellect or fortune.

After each creative act one has to be sustained by one's strength of character, by a moral sense, by I don't know what, lest one tumble.

Virtue's a stronger guard than brass.

When the sacredness of one's word is matched in the attributes of his character throughout, all that constitutes a man, then we find that there is something in a man's life greater than his occupation or his achievements; grander than acquisition or wealth; higher than genius; more enduring than fame.

I learned that moral courage is harder than physical courage.