Quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson
When we have broken our god of tradition, and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with His presence.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
God has delegated himself to a million deputies.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Heaven always bears some proportion to earth. The god of the cannibal will be a cannibal, of the crusades a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
God never jests with us, and will not compromise the end of nature, by permitting any inconsequence in its procession.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why should we not have a first-hand and immediate experience of God?
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
We learn that God IS; that he is in me; and that all things are shadows of him.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
In all conversation between two persons, tacit reference is made, as to a third party, to a common nature. That third party or common nature is not social; it is impersonal; is God.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
My own mind is the direct revelation which I have from God and far least liable to mistake in telling his will of any revelation.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
That which shows God in me, fortifies me. That which shows God out of me, makes me a wart and a wen.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
When we attempt to define and describe God, both language and thought desert us, and we are as helpless as fools and savages.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my brother, because he has shut his own temple doors and recites fables merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson