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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 160

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What care though rival cities soar Along the stormy coast, Penn's town, New York, Baltimore, If Boston knew the most!

What care though rival cities soar Along the stormy coast, Penn's town, New York, Baltimore, If Boston knew the most!

Ralph Waldo Emerson
New York, Boston, Cities
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.216, Delphi Classics

The soul is the perceiver and the revealer of truth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Soul

I suppose you could never explain to the most ingenous molusk that such a creature as a whale existed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whales, Creatures

All life is an experiment. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment. I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom. Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hate, Writing, Perfect
Journal, May 1849

The Nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Attitude, Boys, Healthy
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1808). “Select Essays and Poems”, p.31

The have a good friend is one of the greatest delights of life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Good Friend, Delight

I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart apoints.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Being Yourself, Heart, Moon
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.20, Penguin

Foolish consistencies are the hobgoblins of small minds!

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Consistency, Mind, Foolish

The law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state superinduces the opposite. The soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone for a season, that it may exalt its conversation or society.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self, Law, Opposites
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Essays: First Series”, p.105, Sheba Blake Publishing

Doing well is a result of doing good.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Doing Good, Results, Wells

Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, Reading, Ears
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.150, Harvard University Press

Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wisdom, Writing, Wrens
1870 Society and Solitude,'Art'.

Life is to be lived, not controlled.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life Is, Controlled

Never read any book that is not a year old.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, Years, Reading Books
"Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters".

Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Years, Soul, Cheerful
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.42, Coyote Canyon Press

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' The youth whispers, 'I can.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Dust, Youth
'Voluntaries' no. 3 (1867)

Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or reject; and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, I can accept nothing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Soul, May, Accepting
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.79, Penguin

The escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are; and love of what is simple and beautiful; independence, and cheerful relation, these are the essentials.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Beautiful, Simple, Essentials
"Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson".

We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner; must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Kings, Reality, Greek
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.16, Graphic Arts Books

At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Children, Men, Doors
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.52, 谷月社

Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Solitude

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst...They are for nothing but to inspire.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, Inspire, Used
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Howell Foster (1939). “Emerson's theory of poetry”

In the right hands, literature is not resorted to as a consolation, and by the broken and decayed, but as a decalogue.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, Hands, Broken
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2797, Delphi Classics

A collector recently bought at public auction, in London, for one hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an autograph of Shakespeare; but for nothing a school-boy can read Hamlet and can detect secrets of highest concernment yet unpublished therein.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, School, Boys
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.392, Penguin

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, Reading, Writing
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.66, Penguin

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