A Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every heroic act measures itself by its contempt of some external good. But it finds its own success at last, and then the prudent also extol.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote Topics

Act Also Contempt Every External Finds Good Heroic Itself Last Measures Own Prudent Some Success Then

Quote Author

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

A truly unselfish act is not mine, but God's. It cannot be obstructed. Only for my own plans, my own wishes to study, to work, to rest, eat, or do a service to my fellowman- can some external circumstance "get in the way," and then I am grieved.

Tito Colliander

This is a world of good and evil. Wherever there is good, evil follows, but beyond and behind all these manifestations, all these contradictions, the Vedanta finds out that Unity. It says, "Give up what is evil and give up what is good." What remains then? Behind good and evil stands something which is yours, the real you, beyond every evil, and beyond every good too, and it is that which is manifesting itself as good and bad. Know that first, and then and then alone you will be a true optimist, and not before; for then you will be able to control everything.

Swami Vivekananda

Beauty is the mark God sets on virtue. Every natural action is graceful; every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt.

John Reed

I do not wonder that, where the monastick life is permitted, every order finds votaries, and every monastery inhabitants. Men will submit to any rule, by which they may be exempted from the tyranny of caprice and of chance. They are glad to supply by external authority their own want of constancy and resolution, and court the government of others, when long experience has convinced them of their own inability to govern themselves.

Samuel Johnson

The Islamic world is suffering not only because of external oppression but also because of the loss of its own dignity, of its own heritage, of its own practice of Islam, of its weakening of its own ethics, and many things which are internal to Islam not just external.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

In many cases, mathematics is an escape from reality. The mathematician finds his own monastic niche and happiness in pursuits that are disconnected from external affairs. Some practice it as if using a drug.

Stanislaw Ulam

During every really creative act, the artist finds himself homeless. To overcome this state he has to call up his last reserves of strength.

Asger Jorn

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

Edmund Burke

I define success a little differently. My dream from day one was to act and stand on my own two feet. I'm literally living my dream after struggling really hard to get here and that in itself is success to me.

Amyra Dastur

We should always look back on our own past with a sort of contempt, as long as the tenderness is there - but please let some of the contempt be there.

Dennis Potter

To me, a person's identity is composed of both an 'I' and a 'we.' The 'I' finds itself in love, work, and pleasure, but it also locates itself within some meaningful group identity - a tribe, a community, a 'we.' America is too big and bland a tribe for most of us.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Shakespeare carries us to such a lofty strain of intelligent activity, as to suggest a wealth which beggars his own; and we then feel that the splendid works which he has created, and which in other hours we extol as a sort of self-existent poetry, take no stronger hold of real nature than the shadow of a passing traveller on the rock. The inspiration which uttered itself in Hamlet and Lear could utter things as good from day to day, for ever.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

My question is, do you believe in an evil possessed of its own purity? or does every act intend some good?

Brent Weeks

I suppose the textbook definition of an anti-hero is pretty straightforward - a protagonist who embodies not only heroic characteristics but also some characteristics typically deemed non-heroic, even villainous.