Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Men are often capable of greater things than they perform - They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.

It is not sufficient for the young to devote their enthusiasm, their courage, their ambition, their self-sacrifice to the great ideas of the time; the young must not only preserve but increase their powers if they are to be really equal to their eternal task: that of drawing the age in advance.

A human being is like a seed. Either you can keep it as it is, or you can make it grow into a wonderful tree with flowers and fruits.

He is a man, who is to be a man, the fruit is always present in the seed.

We think that we have great potential but never reach it.

Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.

I am totally fascinated by people and our history as I understand and continue to explore it. People have so much to give and so far to go and yet we have given and gone a great distance. It's really just interesting to ask: why not? And see where that takes me.

No matter our age, circumstances, or abilities, each one of us can create something remarkable of his life.

You're never too old to start learning, and you're never too young to aim high and achieve great things.

The message of 'Star Trek,' if there is one, seems to be that we should try to live up to the very best that we're capable of.

We must develop the capacity to see men not as they are at present but as they may become.

I didn't know I had it in me. There's more to all of us than we realize. Life is so much bigger, grander, higher, and wider than we allow ourselves to think. We're capable of so much more than we allow ourselves to believe.

Most human beings only scratch the surface of their real potential. They have no idea what they're capable of.

Every person is born with a seed of greatness.

Like every person, every thought has the potential to become something great.

Within us is the unborn possibility of limitless experience. Ours is the privilege of giving birth to it!

All life is rife with possibilities. Seeds have possibilities, but all their tomorrows are caught by the patterning of their life cycle. Animals have possibilities that are greater than that of a fir tree or a blade of grass. Still, though, for most animals, the pattern of instinct, the patterns of their lives, are very strong. Humanity has a far greater range of possibilities, especially the very young. Who will children grow up to be? Who will they marry, what will they believe, what will they create? Creation is a very powerful seed of possibility.

When you take a man as he is, you make him worse. When you take a man as he can be, you make him better.

I read somewhere that we are all more than we know. And I really believe that. Everybody is worth something, and think of all the amazing things that you could be to each other, to people you don't even know, of all the things that you could accomplish.

Everybody is a candle, true. But not everybody is lit.

It is our will That thus enchains us to permitted ill. We might be otherwise, we might be all We dream of happy, high, majestical. Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek, But in our mind? and if we were not weak, Should we be less in deed than in desire?

I want you to show them the difference between what they think you are and what you can be.

Remember, if you succeed in everything you try in life, you're living below your full potential and you should take up more difficult or daring things.

But that's life. That's what you learn from; when things happen. Especially at your age. You just have to take it in and remember to think afterwards and not forget and never grow bitter.

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.