Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes - Page 155

• Time is indeed the theater and seat of illusions; nothing is so ductile and elastic. The mind stretches an hour to a century, and dwarfs an age to an hour.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mind, Age, Illusion

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.160, Harvard University Press

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• When the boys come into my yard for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, I own I enter into nature's game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, fearing that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy chaff. But this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid on very thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to tears is the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the less they hang it round with frippery romance, like the children of the happiest fortune.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Horse, Children, Boys

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2389, Delphi Classics

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• Our impatience of miles, when we are in a hurry; but it is still best that a mile should have seventeen hundred and sixty yards.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Should Have, Yards, Impatience

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.235, Penguin

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• The beautiful laws of time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude, are holes and dens. If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, instead of honey, it will yield us bees.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beautiful, Stupid, Hands

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.218, Modern Library

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• An actually existing fly is more important than a possibly existing angel.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Angel, Important, Importance

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• It seems as if the day was not wholly profane in which we have given heed to some natural object.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Improvement, Natural, Given

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt McLaughlin (2010). “The Laws of Nature: Excerpts from the Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.53, North Atlantic Books

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• An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man; as, monachism of the Hermit Anthony, the Reformation of Luther, Quakerism of Fox, Methodism of Wesley, abolition of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton called "the height of Rome;" and all history resolves itself easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons. Let a man, then, know his worth, and keep things under his feet.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Rome, Feet

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• Our poets are men of talents who sing, and not the children of music.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Men, Talent

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.205, Harvard University Press

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• The poet's habit of living should be set on a key so low that the common influences should delight him.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Keys, Delight, Common

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.215, Harvard University Press

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• Poets should be law-givers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil code, and the day's work.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspiration, Law, Insult

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.338, Рипол Классик

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• Only that is poetry which cleanses and mans me.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Poetry

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.294, Рипол Классик

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• Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Men are too coarsely made for the delicacy of beautiful carriage and customs. It is not quite sufficient to good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beautiful, Kindness, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.88, 谷月社

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• The truth, the hope, of any time must be sought in the minorities. Michael Angelo was the conscience of Italy. We grow free with his name, and find it ornamental now, but in his own day his friends were few.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Names, Minorities, Popularity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1876). “Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson ...”, p.174

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• All things with which we deal preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun,--it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in the fields.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Weed, Spring, Rain

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.157

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• The orator is thereby an orator that keeps his feet ever on a fact.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Feet, Facts, Preaching

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1911). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.93, Рипол Классик

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• Pride is handsome, economical; pride eradicates so many vices, letting none subsist but itself, that it seems as if it were a great gain to exchange vanity for pride.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Pride, Vanity, Vices

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.635, Modern Library

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• Let us interrogate the great apparition, that shines so peacefully around us.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Shining, Apparitions

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.7, Library of America

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• Hume's doctrine was that the circumstances vary, the amount of happiness does not; that the beggar cracking fleas in the sunshine under a hedge, and the duke rolling by in his chariot, the girl equipped for her first ball, and the orator returning triumphant from the debate, had different means, but the same quantity of pleasant excitement.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Happiness, Girl, Mean

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.87, Harvard University Press

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• Every heroic act measures itself by its contempt of some external good. But it finds its own success at last, and then the prudent also extol.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Heroism, Lasts, Prudent

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Essays”, p.39, Xist Publishing

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• There comes a period of the imagination to each--a later youth--the power of beauty, the power of looks, of poetry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Imagination, Looks, Youth

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• Justice satisfies everybody, and justice alone.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Justice

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.335, University of Georgia Press

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• Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns, and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. Forget this, and out American colleges will recede in their public importance whilst they grow richer every year.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  College, Years, Gold

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature, addresses, and lectures”, p.58, Harvard University Press

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• a good reader makes a good book

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Good Book, Reader

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• I have no expectation that any man will read history aright who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing today.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Thinking, Names

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.182, Harvard University Press

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• Universities are of course hostile to geniuses.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Genius, University

  English Traits "Universities" (1856)

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