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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 64

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All inquiry into antiquity, all curiosity respecting the Pyramids, the excavated cities, Stonehenge, the Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis,--is the desire to do away this wild, savage, and preposterous There and Then, and

All inquiry into antiquity, all curiosity respecting the Pyramids, the excavated cities, Stonehenge, the Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis,--is the desire to do away this wild, savage, and preposterous There and Then, and introduce in its place the Here and Now.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ohio, Cities, Circles
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2006). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems”, p.133, Bantam Classics

Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history isto be read and written.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Light, Two, History
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.25, Graphic Arts Books

The Times are the masquerade of the eternities; trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise; the receptacle in which the Past leaves its history; the quarry out of which the genius of today is building up the Future.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wise, Future, Past
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1175, Delphi Classics

The whole value of history, of biography, is to increase my self-trust, by demonstrating what man can be and do.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Self, History
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.207

But lest I should mislead any when I have my own head and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter.Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle any thing as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no Past at my back.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Truth, Past, True Or False
Essays Circles (p. 297)

If I have renounced the search of truth, if I have come into the port of some pretending dogmatism, some new church, some Schelling or Cousin, I have died to all use of these new events that are born out of prolific time into multitude of life every hour. I am as bankrupt to whom brilliant opportunities offer in vain. He has just foreclosed his freedom, tied his hands, locked himself up and given the key to another to keep.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cousin, Truth, Opportunity
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte (1982). “Emerson in His Journals”, p.191, Harvard University Press

For he that feeds men serveth few; He serves all who dares be true.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Truth, Men, Charity
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert J. Von Frank (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Poetry”, p.96, Harvard University Press

Why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth, of the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stars, Truth, Light
Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.137, Harvard University Press

He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public. That statement only is fit to be made public, which you have come at in attempting to satisfy your own curiosity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing, Curiosity, Fit
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1320, Delphi Classics

Best masters for the young writer and speaker are the fault- finding brothers and sisters at home who will not spare him, but willpick and cavil, and tell the odious truth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Brother, Home, Fault Finding
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Waldo Emerson, Waldo Emerson Forbes (1914). “Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1820-1872 [1876] Ed”

Our books approach very slowly the things we most wish to know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, Knowledge, Wish
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.197, Graphic Arts Books

Of lower states, of acts of routine and sense, we can tell somewhat; but the masterpieces of God, the total growths and universalmovements of the soul, he hideth; they are incalculable. I can know that truth is divine and helpful; but how it shall help me I can have no guess, for so to be is the sole inlet of so to know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Knowledge, Soul, Growth
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1391, Delphi Classics

All I know is reception; I am and I have: but I do not get, and when I fancied I had gotten anything, I found I did not.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Knowledge, Found, Reception
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.491, Library of America

I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of today. This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Education, Lying, Book
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.14, Cosimo, Inc.

Poverty demoralizes. A man in debt is so far a slave; and Wall-street thinks it easy for a millionaire to be a man of his word, aman of honor, but, that, in failing circumstances, no man can be relied on to keep his integrity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wall, Integrity, Men
"Wealth". Book by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860.

Whatever events in progress shall disgust men with cities, and infuse into them the passion for country life, and country pleasures, will render a service to the whole face of this continent, and will further the most poetic of all the occupations of real life, the bringing out by art the native but hidden graces of the landscape.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Country, Art, Real
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.295

The democrat is a young conservative; the conservative is an old democrat. The aristocrat is the democrat ripe, and gone to seed,--because both parties stand on the one ground of the supreme value of property, which one endeavors to get, and the other to keep.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Party, Gone, Politics
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.252, Penguin

Whilst the rights of all as persons are equal, in virtue of their access to reason, their rights in property are very unequal. Oneman owns his clothes, and another owns a country.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Country, Clothes, Rights
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.470, Modern Library

Personal rights, universally the same, demand a government framed on the ratio of the census: property demands a government framedon the ratio of owners and of owning.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Rights, Government, Demand

The whole constitution of property on its present tenures, is injurious, and its influence on persons deteriorating and degrading.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Constitution, Influence, Degrading
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1500, Delphi Classics

Intellectual tasting of life will not supersede muscular activity. If a man should consider the nicety of the passage of a piece of bread down his throat, he would starve.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Intellectual, Bread
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.478, Library of America

We hear eagerly every thought and word quoted from an intellectual man. But in his presence our own mind is roused to activity, and we forget very fast what he says.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Intellectual, Mind
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.85, Penguin

A man of thought must feel the thought that is parent of the universe: that the masses of nature do undulate and flow.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Parent, Flow
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1614, Delphi Classics

When the literary class betray a destitution of faith, it is not strange that society should be disheartened and sensualized by unbelief.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Faith, Class, Strange
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.411, Modern Library

The scholar was not raised by the sacred thoughts amongst which he dwelt, but used them to selfish ends. He was a profane person,and became a showman, turning his gifts to marketable use, and not to his own sustenance and growth. It was found that the intellect could be independently developed, that is, in separation from the man, as any single organ can be invigorated, and the result was monstrous.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Selfish, Men, Growth
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1528, Delphi Classics

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