A Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our first mistake is the belief that the circumstance gives the joy which we give to the circumstance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote Topics

Belief Circumstance First Give Gives Joy Mistake Our Which

Quote Author

Ralph Waldo Emerson
American - Philosopher
May 25, 1803 - April 27, 1882

It would be a mistake to link anything that Israel does to a certain circumstance. And it is a mistake to feel comfortable in any circumstance just because Israel did not act on it.

Bashar al-Assad

At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish. The knapsack of custom falls off his back with the first step he makes into these precincts. Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find Nature to be the circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is a joy available that the deepest grief cannot put out. No circumstance or person can take away the joy God gives.

Timothy Keller

Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance. It is character which builds an existence out of circumstance. From the same materials one man builds palaces, another hovels; one warehouses, another villas; bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks until the architect can make them something else.

Thomas Carlyle

Today I escaped all circumstance, or rather I cast out all circumstance, for it was not outside me, but within my judgements.

Marcus Aurelius

If two or more instances of the phenomenon under investigation have only one circumstance in common, the circumstance in which alone all the instances agree is the cause (or effect) of the given phenomenon.

John Stuart Mill

success is not a matter of circumstance, but of power to meet circumstance.

Frances G. Wickes

You think me the child of circumstance; I make my circumstance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I believe that humans adapt to circumstance. The Internet is quite an unprecedented circumstance, so it's going to take people a while to get their heads around it.

Jarvis Cocker

What are the proper grounds for joy? Is it circumstance which will determine the stature of my spirit? Ah, no. It is choice. It is always a choice - in the face of any event - for joy.

Mary Anne Radmacher

There is nothing--no circumstance, no trouble, no testing--that can ever touch me until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment. But as I refuse to become panicky, as I lift up my eyes to Him and accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my own heart, no sorrow will ever disturb me, no circumstance will cause me to fret, for I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is--that is the rest of victory!

Alan Redpath

Surely, surely the only one true knowledge of our fellow man is that which enables us to feel with him--which gives us a fine ear for the heart-pulses that are beating under the mere clothes of circumstance and opinion.

George Eliot

Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance.

Thomas Carlyle

We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance.

Benjamin Disraeli

We can spend our days bemoaning our losses, or we can grow from them. Ultimately the choice is ours. We can be victims of circumstance or masters of our own fate, but make no mistake, we cannot be both. The Walk - Epilogue Page 288