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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 167

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Nature is good, but intellect is better, as the law-giver is before the law-receiver.

Nature is good, but intellect is better, as the law-giver is before the law-receiver.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Law, Giver, Intellect
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.229, Penguin

To be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false,--this is the mark and character of intelligence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Character, Able, Mark
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1841). “Essays”, p.231

The intelligent have a right over the ignorant; namely, the right of instructing them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Intelligent, Ignorant, Intelligence
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.237, Penguin

It is frivolous to fix pedantically the date of particular inventions. They have all been invented over and over fifty times. Man is the arch machine, of which all these shifts drawn from himself are toy models. He helps himself on each emergency by copying or duplicating his own structure, just so far as then need is.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Copying, Needs
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.260, Penguin

Every chair should be a throne and hold a king.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Kings, Thrones, Chairs
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.522, Library of America

There is no God dare wrong a worm.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Worms, Dare, There Is No God
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.284, Library of America

We say the cows laid out Boston. Well, there are worse surveyors.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Boston, Cows, Wells
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.379

It is commonly observed that a sudden wealth, like a prize drawn in a lottery or a large bequest to a poor family, does not permanently enrich. They have served no apprenticeship to wealth, and with the rapid wealth come rapid claims which they do not know how to deny, and the treasure is quickly dissipated.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wisdom, Knowledge, Men
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1860). “Power, Wealth, Illusions”, p.76

In England every man you meet is some man's son; in America, he may be some man's father.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Father, Son, Men
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.153, Penguin

Only those books come down which deserve to last . All the gilt edges, vellum and morocco, all the presentation copies to all the libraries will not preserve a book in circulation beyond its intrinsic date.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, Library, Morocco
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.65, Harvard University Press

Wisdom will never let us stand with any man on an unfriendly footing. We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if we waited for some better sympathy or intimacy to come. But whence and when: Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wisdom, Men, Today Life
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.131, 谷月社

He who does a good deed is instantly ennobled. He who does a mean deed is by the action itself contracted.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mean, Doe, Deeds
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.77, Penguin

The worthless and offensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest, invariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and never get over their astonishment at the ingratitude and selfishness of their contemporaries.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thinking, People, Selfishness
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.14

The great man is not convulsible or tormentable; events pass over him without much impression.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Greatness, Men, Events
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.98, Graphic Arts Books

We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between these extremes is the equator of life, of thought, or spirit, or poetry,--a narrow belt.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Science, Poetry, May
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.480, Library of America

And of poetry, the success is not attained when it lulls and satisfies, but when it astonishes and fires us with new endeavours after the unattainable.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fire, Poetry, Unattainable
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.83

Great is the art, Great be the manners, of the bard. He shall not his brain encumber With the coil of rhythm and number; But, leaving rule and pale forethought, He shall aye climb For his rhyme. "Pass in, pass in," the angels say

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Art, Angel, Numbers
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.4360, Delphi Classics

The rhyme of the poet Modulates the king's affairs.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Kings, Poetry, Politics
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Poems”, p.144, The Floating Press

The charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Morning, Eye, Men
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.36, Harvard University Press

The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities of his imagination.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Art, Creativity, Hands
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1619, Delphi Classics

A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes uppermost, and, because he says every thing, saying, at last, something good; but a heart in unison with his time and country. There is nothing whimsical or fantastic in his production, but sweet and sad earnest, freighted with the weightiest convictions, and pointed with the most determined aim which any man or class knows of in his times.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Country, Sweet, Heart
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.110, 谷月社

It is the essence of poetry to spring, like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse all history.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Daughter, Spring, Past
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1624, Delphi Classics

Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of SHAKSPEARE's wit. The men who lived with him became Poets, for the air was fame.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Air, Poetry
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Poems”, p.240, The Floating Press

There is, in all great poets, a wisdom of humanity which is superior to any talents they exercise.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Exercise, Poetry, Humanity
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Natural Abundance: Ralph Waldo Emerson's Guide to Prosperity”, p.184, Simon and Schuster

Criticism is infested with the cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit to imitate the sayers.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Expression, Skills
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1979). “Emerson's Literary Criticism”, p.27, U of Nebraska Press

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