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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes about Writing - Page 2

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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.

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

It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature that a man, having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal from the writings of others at discretion.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing, Men, Literature
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.715, Library of America

For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing, Air, Poetry
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.187, Penguin

We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing, Choices, Genius
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.102, Harvard University Press

If you would learn to write, it is in the street you must learn it. Both for the vehicle and for the aims of fine arts, you must frequent the public square. The people, and not the college, is the writer's home. A scholar is a candle which the love and desire of all men will light.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Art, Home, Writing
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.666, Modern Library

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Education, Reading, Writing
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred R. Ferguson (1965). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume V: 1835-1838”, p.233, Harvard University Press

All writing is by the grace of God. People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with bad. In these sentences that you show me, I can find no beauty, for I see death in every clause and every word. There is a fossil or a mummy character which pervades this book. The best sepulchers, the vastest catacombs, Thebes and Cairo, Pyramids, are sepulchers to me. I like gardens and nurseries. Give me initiative, spermatic, prophesying, man-making words.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, Writing, Character
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.171, Courier Corporation

Every sentence spoken by Napoleon, and every line of his writing, deserves reading, as it is the sense of France.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Reading, Writing, Lines
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.413

The virtue of books is to be readable.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, Writing, Virtue
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco (1982). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.339, Harvard University Press

But there is no end to the praise of books, to the value of the library. Who shall estimate their influence on our population where all the millions read and write ? It is the joy of nations that man can communicate all his thoughts, discoveries and virtues to records that may last for centuries.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, Writing, Men
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1921). “Representative men. Miscellanies”

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book, Writing, Men
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1655, Delphi Classics

Happy is he who looks only into his work to know if it will succeed, never into the times or the public opinion; and who writes from the love of imparting certain thoughts and not from the necessity of sale - who writes always to the unknown friend.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing, Public Opinion, Looks
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.231, Courier Corporation

It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Running, Writing, Reality
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.75, Courier Corporation

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about them. They lived in their writings, and sotheir house and street life was trivial and commonplace. If you would know their tastes and complexions, the most admiring of their readers most resembles them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cousin, Writing, House
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.635, Library of America

All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing, Stolen

He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public.

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

When a man does not write his poetry, it escapes by other vents through him.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing, Men, Doe
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.389

The sermon which I write inquisitive of truth is good a year after, but that which is written because a sermon must be writ is musty the next day.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing, Years, Next Day
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1963). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.327, Harvard University Press

One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year. He only is right who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded by worry, fret and anxiety. Finish every day, and be done with it. You have done what you could.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing, Heart, Years

There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every man's title to fame.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Art, Book, Writing
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.50, Penguin

Who is he that shall control me? Why may not I act and speak and write and think with entire freedom? What am I to the universe, or, the unvierse, what is it to me? Who hath forged the chains of wrong and right, of Opinion and Custom? And must I wear them?

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing, Thinking, May
"Emerson: The Mind on Fire". Book by Robert D. Richardson (p. 51), March 6, 1995.

For no man can write anything who does not think that what he writes is, for the time, the history of the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing, Men, Thinking
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1493, Delphi Classics

There is some reason to believe that when a man does not write his poetry it escapes by other vents through him, instead of the one vent of writing; clings to his form and manners, whilst poets have often nothing poetical about them except their verses.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Believe, Writing, Creativity
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.389

Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called "silent poetry," and poetry "speaking painting." The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Art, Writing, Law
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters”, p.48, London S. Low, Son & Marston 1870.

All writing comes by the grace of God.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing, Grace, Grace Of God
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.210, Penguin

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