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"Can rules or tutors educate
The semigod whom we await?
He must be musical,
Tremulous, impressional,
Alive to gentle influence
Of landscape and of sky
And tender to the spirit-touch
Of man's or maiden's eye."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Culture," The Conduct of Life (1860). |
"Do not craze yourself with thinking, but go about your business anywhere."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Experience," Essays, Second Series (1844). |
"If you believe in Fate to your harm, believe it, at least, for your good."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Fate," The Conduct of Life (1860). |
"But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Gifts," Essays, Second Series (1844). |
"Magic and all that is ascribed to it is a deep presentiment of the powers of science."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "History," Essays, First Series (1841, repr. 1847). |
"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Journals, entry for Nov. 8, 1838 (1909-1914). |
"Labor is God's education."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Speech, January 25, 1841, before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library Association, Boston, Massachusetts. "Man the Reformer," Nature, Addresses, and Lectures (1849). |
"The Imagination may be defined to be, the use which the Reason makes of the material world. Shakespeare possesses the power of subordinating nature for the purposes of expression, beyond all poets. His imperial muse tosses to creation like a bauble from hand to hand, and uses it to embody any caprice of thought that is upper-most in his mind. The remotest spaces of nature are visited, and the farthest sundered things are brought together, by a subtle spiritual connection. We are made aware that magnitude of material things is relative, and all objects shrink and expand to serve the passion of the poet."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Nature, ch. 6 (1836, revised and repr. 1849).
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616). |
"I confess, the motto of the Globe newspaper is so attractive to me, that I can seldom find much appetite to read what is below it in its columns, "The world is governed too much.""
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Lecture, March 3, 1884, in Amory Hall, Boston, Massachusetts. "New England Reformers," Essays, Second Series (1844). |
"To clothe the fiery thought
In simple words succeeds,
For still the craft of genius is
To mask a king in weeds."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Poet," May-Day and Other Pieces (1867). |
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