The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be hono…

Ralph Waldo Emerson
2017 citations
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Life Love
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Life is a search after power. ✨ Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
A little praise goes a great ways. ✨ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1966). Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1824-1838, p.198, Harvard University Press
No great man ever complains of want of opportunity. ✨ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph H. Orth, Glen M. Johnson (1994). The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, p.115, University of Missouri Press
Nature forever puts a premium on reality. What is done for effect is seen to be done for effect; what is done for love is felt to be done for love. A man inspires affection and honor because he was n … ▶
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. ✨ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). Essays and Lectures, p.541, Librar … ▶

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

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