Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

It is only when we love God and Christ with all of our hearts, souls, and minds that we are able to share this love with our neighbors through acts of kindness and service... When this pure love of Christ - or charity - envelops us, we think, feel, and act more like Heavenly Father and Jesus would think, feel, and act. Our motivation and heartfelt desire are like unto that of the Savior.

Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue.

True virtue would never liken its rewards to points on a loyalty card, not because it is its own reward, but because it is not something we should practice to accrue future benefits.

Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love.

When I was younger, I was impressed by those who were educated, accomplished, successful, and applauded by the world. But over the years, I have come to the realization that I am far more impressed by those wonderful and blessed souls who are truly good and without guile.

A virtuous character is likened to an unblemished flower. Piety is a fadeless bud that half opens on earth and expands through eternity. Sweetness of temper is the odor of fresh blooms, and the amaranth flowers of pure affection open but to bloom forever.

God looks at the clean hands, not the full ones.

Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world.

All sympathy not consistent with acknowledged virtue is but disguised selfishness.

Saint-Just's lips were believed to be pure. There was faith in him because of his reputation for asceticism and Spartan frugality. He had been an example of all the civic virtues. The purity of morals which he passionately demanded was no more than that which he practiced himself

It may be very difficult to keep the virtues of purity, passion, and sacrifice of love in real life.

He was a patient man, a kind man, a man who cared about animals and human beings, all qualities not to be devalued, but James Herriot was not a saint. I tried so hard to play against some of the scripts that implied that he was a saint, but I don't think I was always altogether successful.

All virtuous women, like tortoises, carry their house on their heads, and their chappel in their heart, and their danger in their eye, and their souls in their hands, and God in all their actions.

Purity of life is the highest and truest art.

Not beauty, no, but virtue rais'd my fires, whose sacred flame did cherish chaste desires.

Call it the Absolute, the Ideal, Perfection, Sanctity, Decency, or what you will, but strive toward it or you will smother in the morass.

Christian love is loving without counting the cost. This is the lesson of the Good Samaritan; this is the lesson of Jesus.

At its highest, love is a religious state of consciousness. I love you too, Buddha loves, Jesus loves, but their love demands nothing in return.

Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.

The love for our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified. The more we are driven along this road, the more certain is the victory of love over the enemy's hatred. For then it is not the disciple's own love, but the love of Jesus Christ alone, who for the sake of his enemies went to the cross and prayed for them as he hung there.

I'm trying to imitate Jesus in the fact that he said to be like children, to love children, to be as pure as children and to make yourself as innocent and to see the world through eyes of wonderment and the whole magical quality of it all.

We must love our friend so much that she shall be associated with our purest and holiest thoughts alone.

Even Bertrand Russell, who fancied he saw flaws in Christ's character, confessed nonetheless that 'What the world needs is love, Christian love, or compassion.' But this belies a belief in what most others acknowledge, namely, that Christ was the perfect manifestation of the virtue of love.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use

. . . meekness,love, purity, these are the things that should magnify us.