These Transcendentalism quotes will inspire you. Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the eastern United States. A core belief is in the inherent goodness of people and nature, and while society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the individual, people are at their best when truly “self-reliant” and independent.
Below you will find a collection of motivating, knowledgeable, and encouraging transcendentalism quotes, transcendentalism sayings, and transcendentalism proverbs.
Best Transcendentalism Quotes
- “Be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy – your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself.” ~ Annie Leibovitz , Transcendentalism quotes about nature
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“Belief fuels our decisions – even when we are not clearly aware of those beliefs.” ~ Mary Anne Radmacher
- “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
- “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however, measured or far away.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“Nature provides exceptions to every rule.” ~ Margaret Fuller
- “Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation… even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci
- “In actual life it requires the greatest discipline to be simple, and the acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook upon life.” ~ Carl Jung , Simplicity transcendentalism quotes
- “Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
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“To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.” ~ Bono
- “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
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“To be great is to be misunderstood.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Allow yourself to trust joy and embrace it. You will find you dance with everything.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Children are born innocent. Before they are domesticated they live in the moment, love without fear, and don’t even think about the opinions of others.” ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz
- “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“In wildness is the preservation of the world.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “Man seeks to change the foods available in nature to suit his tastes, thereby putting an end to the very essence of life contained in them.” ~ Sai Baba”Man seeks to change the foods available in nature to suit his tastes, thereby putting an end to the very essence of life contained in them.” ~ Sai Baba
- “We should not let our response to the people who disagree with us be dictated by what they say about us or even how they treat people we care for. There has to be a chance that we can find love.” ~ William J. Clinton
- “Transcendentalism is, we might say, an early form of anarchism. The Transcendentalists also did not call themselves anarchists, but there are anarchist ideas in their thinking and in their literature. They were all suspicious of authority. We might say that the Transcendentalism played a role in creating an atmosphere of skepticism towards authority, towards government.” ~ Howard Zinn
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“Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “That government is best which governs least.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal.” ~ Gustave Courbet
- “It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.” ~ Julius Caesar
- “Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.” ~ Gautama Buddha
- “One must love humanity in order to reach out into the unique essence of each individual: no one can be too low or too ugly.” ~ Georg Buchner
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“When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“We boil at different degrees.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Back through the ages of barbarism and civilization, in all tongues, we find this instinctive pleasure in the imitative action that is the very essence of all drama.” ~ George P. Baker
- “Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “Pursuit and seduction are the essence of sexuality. It’s part of the sizzle.” ~ Camille Paglia
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“So what I did on the field was the essence of what I am. Remember me like that.” ~ Steve Carlton
- “Even from the darkest night songs of beauty can be born.” ~ Mary Anne Radmacher
- “Violence, even well-intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself.” ~ Laozi
- “Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But in fact, they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.” ~ Margaret Fuller
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“In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “In all things and in all ways, choice impacts virtually every element of our life. It bears repeating that even those things which seem out of reach of our choice are governed by how we choose to perceive them.” ~ Mary Anne Radmacher
- “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Originality is the essence of true scholarship. Creativity is the soul of the true scholar.” ~ Nnamdi Azikiwe
- “Everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “It is not of the essence of mathematics to be conversant with the ideas of number and quantity.” ~ George Boole
