Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

What is the purpose of our might if we do not use it for good.

That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral.

Being decent is the only thing that matters in a terrible world like this.

Love is the supreme value around which all moral values can be integrated into one ethical system valid for the whole of humanity.

Liberty is equally desirable to the good and to the bad, to the brave and to the dastardly.

Evil comes at leisure like the disease. Good comes in a hurry like the doctor.

But courage without conduct is the virtue of a robber, or a tyrant.

Possessed of courage but devoid of morality, a superior man will make trouble while a small man will be a brigand.

A person may be qualified to do greater good to mankind and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without faith than by faith without morality.

Being in humaneness is good. If we select other goodness and thus are far apart from humaneness, how can we be the wise?

In his dealings with the world, the gentleman is not invariably for or against anything. He is on the side of what is moral.

The compass of compassion asks not what is good for me? but what is good? Not what is best for me but what is best. Not what is right for me but what is right. Not how much can we take? but How much ought we leave? and how much might we give? Not what is easy but what is worthy. Not what is practical but what is moral.

Only those few people who practice it believe in goodness.

The virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.

To be good and to do good-that is the whole of religion.

Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.

In the darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, whatever else is doubtful, this at least is certain. If there be no God and no future state, yet even then it is better to be generous than selfish, better to be chaste than licentious, better to be true than false, better to be brave than to be a coward.

Vice is a dreary business. And virtue is not a lot of fun, either.

Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong.

We are the world, we are the children.

You stand for what is right, Lina, without the expectation of gratitude or reward.

One cannot seek to uphold honor in a being that has none.

Justice extorts no reward, no kind of price; she is sought, therefore, for her own sake.

You can be a good human being and just be shrewd.

The only virtue I want to claim is truth and nonviolence.