Quote

He needs no library, for he has not done thinking no church, for he is himself a prophet no statute book, for he hath the Lawgiver no money, for he is value itself no road, for he is at home where he is.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Age: 78 †
Born: 1803
Born: May 25
Died: 1882
Died: April 27
Biographer
Diarist
Essayist
Philosopher
Poet
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
R. W. Emerson
Waldo Emerson
Thinking
Value
Church
Lawgiver
Values
Statute
Money
Statutes
Home
Hath
Book
Prophet
Done
Library
Needs
Road

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
Wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Chiefly the sea-shore has been the point of departure to knowledge, as to commerce. The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Every roof is agreeable to the eye, until it is lifted then we find tragedy and moaning women, and hard-eyed husbands.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The Times are the masquerade of the eternities trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise the receptacle in which the Past leaves its history the quarry out of which the genius of today is building up the Future.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity, and not for life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
I am not so foolish as to declaim against forms. Forms are as essential as bodies but to exalt particular forms, to adhere to oneform a moment after it is outgrown, is unreasonable, and it is alien to the spirit of Christ.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The only prudence in life is concentration.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
No man can have society upon his own terms.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The poet's habit of living should be set on a key so low that the common influences should delight him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Let us not forget the genial miraculous force we have known to proceed from a book.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
We prize books, and they prize them most who are themselves wise.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The city is recruited from the country.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
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
Image
Of all debts, men are least willing to pay their taxes what a satire this is on government.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Experience is the only teacher, and we get his lesson indifferently in any school.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Thefts never enrich alms never impoverish murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie-for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance-will instantly vitiate the effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with bad.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson