Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
-
And when his hours are numbered, and the world Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, The frolic architecture of the snow.
-
Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?
-
For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem, - a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.
-
The highest revelation is that God is in every man.
-
What you are comes to you.
-
Olympian bards who sung Divine Ideas below, Which always find us young, And always keep us so.
-
It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.
-
When we quarrel, how we wish we had been blameless.
-
Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
-
Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time.
-
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
-
Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.
-
He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.
-
We cannot overstate our debt to the Past, but the moment has the supreme claim. The Past is for us; but the sole terms on which it can become ours are its subordination to the Present. Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor. We must not tamper with the organic motion of the soul.
-
We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.
-
Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.
-
Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.
-
I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.
-
In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin, - seven or eight ancestors at least, - and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.
-
I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, - mettle and bottom.
-
Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one.
-
People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.
-
There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.
-
It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.