Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Poetry

• A lady with whom I was riding in the forest said to me that the woods always seemed to her to wait, as if the genii who inhabit them suspend their deeds until the wayfarer had passed onward; a thought which poetry has celebrated in the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human feet.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Feet, Break Off, Waiting

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.147, Harvard University Press

• Only poetry inspires poetry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry, Inspire

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1871). “Society and Solitude and Other Essays”, p.171

• Painting was called silent poetry and poetry speaking painting.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Pain, Poetry, Silence

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2415, Delphi Classics

• Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Princess, Poetry

• Every word was once a poem.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Emerson: Poems”, p.251, Everyman's Library

• It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Philosophy, Long

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.209, Harvard University Press

• Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Philosophy, Rocks

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph H. Orth, Glen M. Johnson (1994). “The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.184, University of Missouri Press

• Good poetry could not have been otherwise written than it is. The first time you hear it, it sounds rather as if copied out of some invisible tablet in the Eternal mind than as if arbitrarily composed by the poet.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry, Mind, Sound

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.49, Harvard University Press

• Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, and all flock to their aid.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hope, Learning, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1136, Delphi Classics

• Language is fossil Poetry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry, Fossils, Language

  'Essays. Second Series' (1844) 'The Poet'

• 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

• The finest poetry was first experience.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry, Firsts, Finest

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1628, Delphi Classics

• For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry, Argument

  1844 Essays: Second Series,'The Poet'.

• The true poem is the poet's mind.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Poetry, Mind

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.244, Library of America

• The only gift is a portion of thyself . . . the poet brings his poem; the shepherd his lamb. . . .

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry, Shepherds, Lambs

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

• The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Ambition, Character

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2800, Delphi Classics

• 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

• 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

• The world still wants its poet-priest, a reconciler, who shall not trifle with Shakspeare the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act, with equal inspiration. For knowledge will brighten the sunshine; right is more beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with universal wisdom.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beautiful, Inspiration, Sunshine

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.162

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Men consort in camp and town
  But the poet dwells alone.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Men, Poetry

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Poems”, p.152, The Floating Press

• 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

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