He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.
Meaning of the quote
If you don't try to overcome your fears every day, you haven't discovered the true meaning of living. Facing your fears, even small ones, helps you grow and learn more about yourself. It's through these daily challenges that you can unlock the secrets to a fulfilling life.
About Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an influential American philosopher, essayist, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement in the 19th century. He was known for his advocacy of individualism, nonconformity, and the belief in the inherent goodness of both people and nature. Emerson’s essays, such as “Self-Reliance” and “The Over-Soul,” had a profound impact on American literature and thought.
More quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Hitch your wagon to a star.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
All mankind love a lover.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Men are what their mothers made them.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
America is another name for opportunity.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every sentence spoken by Napoleon, and every line of his writing, deserves reading, as it is the sense of France.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
God screens us evermore from premature ideas.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We are wiser than we know.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
All diseases run into one, old age.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
There is creative reading as well as creative writing.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
There is always safety in valor.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Men admire the man who can organize their wishes and thoughts in stone and wood and steel and brass.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, but symmetrical men never.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force – that thoughts rule the world.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
To be great is to be misunderstood.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Children are all foreigners.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Always do what you are afraid to do.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Doing well is the result of doing good. That’s what capitalism is all about.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The first wealth is health.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Some books leave us free and some books make us free.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. He is by constitution expensive, and needs to be rich.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Reality is a sliding door.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every artist was first an amateur.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We aim above the mark to hit the mark.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every burned book enlightens the world.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
What you are comes to you.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A man in debt is so far a slave.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
O Day of days when we can read! The reader and the book, either without the other is naught.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Nature hates calculators.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
If a man can… make a better mousetrap, the world will make a beaten path to his door.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every spirit makes its house, and we can give a shrewd guess from the house to the inhabitant.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Make yourself necessary to somebody.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Revolutions go not backward.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
People that seem so glorious are all show; underneath they are like everyone else.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
As soon as there is life there is danger.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Good men must not obey the laws too well.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every hero becomes a bore at last.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A man is a method, a progressive arrangement; a selecting principle, gathering his like to him; wherever he goes.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The ancestor of every action is a thought.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
I have no hostility to nature, but a child’s love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Beauty without expression is boring.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘always do what you are afraid to do.’
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
There are other measures of self-respect for a man, than the number of clean shirts he puts on every day.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The faith that stands on authority is not faith.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We acquire the strength we have overcome.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
God enters by a private door into every individual.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Money often costs too much.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
It is the quality of the moment, not the number of days, or events, or of actors, that imports.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Power and speed be hands and feet.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Genius always finds itself a century too early.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A great man is always willing to be little.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
It is not length of life, but depth of life.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The search after the great men is the dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of manhood.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We are always getting ready to live but never living.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
There is no chance and anarchy in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The reward of a thing well done is having done it.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
There is a tendency for things to right themselves.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Cause and effect are two sides of one fact.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
People only see what they are prepared to see.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The highest revelation is that God is in every man.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
A man is what he thinks about all day long.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Our best thoughts come from others.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Pictures must not be too picturesque.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The years teach much which the days never know.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Earth laughs in flowers.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every wall is a door.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Nothing external to you has any power over you.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
It is my desire, in the office of a Christian minister, to do nothing which I cannot do with my whole heart. Having said this, I have said all.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
When we quarrel, how we wish we had been blameless.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
We must be our own before we can be another’s.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Science does not know its debt to imagination.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Every experiment, by multitudes or by individuals, that has a sensual and selfish aim, will fail.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.
American philosopher (1803-1882)
There is more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount.
American philosopher (1803-1882)