Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Nothing can work me damage except myself. The harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault.

No man is hurt but by himself.

Ourselves are to ourselves the cause of ill.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.

One never perishes through anybody but oneself.

Some people are nobody's enemies but their own

None can do a man so much harm as he doeth himself.

All honor's wounds are self-inflicted.

I did it to myself. It wasn't society... it wasn't a pusher, it wasn't being blind or being black or being poor. It was all my doing.

Laws provide against injury from others, but not from ourselves.

The sinner sins against himself; the wrongdoer wrongs himself, becoming the worse by his own action.

In the commission of evil, fear no man so much as thyself; another is but one witness against thee, thou art a thousand; another thou mayest avoid, thyself thou canst not. Wickedness is its own punishment.

All real difficulty stems from no responsibility. Full responsibility is not fault; it is recognition of being cause.

Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.

Know for certain that there is no power in the universe to injure us unless we first injure ourselves.

The violence done us by others is often less painful than that which we do to ourselves.

He who does wrong does wrong against himself. He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad.

I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. ... Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still.

I must say... that I ruined myself: and that nobody, great or small, can be ruined except by his own hand.

In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible ; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another.

I suppose I’m the one responsible for destroying myself.

The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officers cannot remove them, even if they would.

One could only damage oneself through the harm one did to others. One could never get directly at oneself.

When you are fooled by something else, the damage will not be so big. But when you are fooled by yourself, it is fatal. No more medicine.