“Character is higher than intellect.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The American Scholar (Primary source)
Delivered as a commencement address at Harvard, this speech was famously dubbed America’s Intellectual Declaration of Independence by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., an American polymath. Emerson urged American intellectuals to break free from European traditions and cultivate a uniquely American voice and scholarship, emphasizing the role of the scholar as Man Thinking.
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“Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary. The stream retreats to its source. A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“The law of nature is, do the thing, and you shall have the power: but they who do not the thing have not the power.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“The years teach much which the days never know.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary sourceMore quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson →
“I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt Disputed“Wish not so much to live long as to live well.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“I may not be as strong as I think. But I know many tricks and I have resolution.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source