Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

He whose wisdom cannot help him, gets no good from being wise.

Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.

To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.

Ultimately, you have to work for your own enlightenment - for smarts - or it gets boring.

Some people still think knowledge is power.

Wiser, never wise. Smarter, never smart.

What transforms this world is - knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.

You cannot be wise without some basis of knowledge, but you may easily acquire knowledge and remain bare of wisdom.

Nobody likes to see a stupid guy wise up.

Knowledge is the best eraser in the world for disharmony, distrust, despair, and the endless physical deficiencies of man.

It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated.

Learning makes the wise wiser and the fool more foolish.

Without knowledge there can be no sure progress. Vice and barbarism are the inseparable companions of ignorance. Nor is it too much to say that, except in rare instances, the highest virtue is attained only through intelligence.

All ignorance toboggans into know and trudges up to ignorance again.

There is nothing new to gain. On the other hand a man must lose his ignorance. That is all.

There is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom.

A person is truly a human if he or she learns, and teaches, and inspires others. It is difficult to regard as truly human someone who is ignorant and has no desire to learn.

It may be made a question whether men grow wiser as they grow older, anymore than they grow stronger or healthier or honest.

If you eat three times a day, you become fat. If you read three times a day, you become wise. It's better to be wise than fat.

Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise.

To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself, and enlarges the sphere of existence.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.

Knowledge for its own sake was meaningless, its mere accumulation a waste of time. Knowledge must lead to understanding.

If you make one gift this year, make it the gift of knowledge.