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"But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Manners," Essays, Second Series (1844). |
"The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Nature, ch. 8 (1836, revised and repr. 1849). |
"Nature, hating art and pains,
Baulks and baffles plotting brains;
Casualty and Surprise
Are the apples of her eyes;
But she dearly loves the poor,
And, by marvel of her own,
Strikes the loud pretender down."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Nature I," May-Day and Other Pieces (1867). |
"If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Plato; or, the Philosopher," Representative Men (1850). |
"We write from aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. We paint those qualities which we do not possess."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Prudence," Essays, First Series (1841, repr. 1847). |
"A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;—read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Self-Reliance," Essays, First Series (1841). |
"Belief and love,—a believing love will relieve us of a vast load of care. O my brothers, God exists. There is a soul at the centre of nature, and over the will of every man, so that none of us can wrong the universe."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Spiritual Laws," Essays, First Series (1841, repr. 1847). |
"The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-men can do little for him."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "The Comic," Letters and Social Aims (1876). |
"The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter "Little Prig";"
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. poet, essayist. The Mountain and the Squirrel (l. 1-3). . .
Oxford Book of American Light Verse, The. William Harmon, ed. (1979) Oxford University Press. |
"I like a church; I like a cowl;
I love a prophet of the soul;
And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles;
Yet not for all his faith can see
Would I that cowled churchman be."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. poet, essayist. The Problem (l. 1-6). . .
Norton Anthology of Poetry, The. Alexander W. Allison and others, eds. (3d ed., 1983) W. W. Norton & Company. |
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