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God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.
The complete collection
7 quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson · clear filters
God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide
I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail.
Wrongly attributed
Universally attributed to Emerson, and it is in none of his essays, journals or letters. It is Muriel Strode, an American writer almost nobody has heard of, in the August 1903 issue of The Open Court. The rewriting is the interesting part: Strode wrote a vow in the first person about herself, and the version that circulates has been turned into an instruction issued to somebody else. Do not go where the path may lead is not what she said. I will not follow is.
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