Quote

Only those books come down which deserve to last . All the gilt edges, vellum and morocco, all the presentation copies to all the libraries will not preserve a book in circulation beyond its intrinsic date.

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
Lasts
Preserve
Last
Preserves
Gilt
Book
Date
Morocco
Edges
Intrinsic
Come
Library
Circulation
Deserve
Libraries
Beyond
Presentation
Books
Copies

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
When a man does not write his poetry, it escapes by other vents through him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
I quote another man's saying unluckily, that other withdraws himself in the same way, and quotes me.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
I look on trade and every mechanical craft as education also. But let me discriminate what is precious herein. There is in each ofthese works an act of invention, an intellectual step, or short series of steps taken that act or step is the spiritual act all the rest is mere repetition of the same a thousand times.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
It is curious that Christianity, which is idealism, is sturdily defended by the brokers, and steadily attacked by the idealists.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The simplest words,--we do not know what they mean except when we love and aspire.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Manners have been somewhat cynically defined to be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a distance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions. Society is very swift in its instincts, and if you do not belong to it, resists and sneers at you, or quietly drops you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
We acquire the strength we have overcome.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
There comes a time in each man's education in which he comes to the conclusion that envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide, and society in in conspiracy against each one of its members.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
A man's style is his mind's voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The history of reform is always identical it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Don't be a cynic and disconsolate preacher. Don't bewail and moan. Omit the negative propositions. Challenge us with incessant affirmatives.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our own spontaneous expression with good humored inflexibility whether the whole cry of voices is on the other side.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something ... he learns his ignorance, is cured of the insanity of conceit has got moderation and real skill.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
I am primarily engaged to myself to be a public servant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all men that there is intelligence andgood will at the heart of all things, and even higher and yet higher leadings. These are my engagements how can your law further or hinder me in what I shall do to men?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
In the morning a man walks with his whole body in the evening, only with his legs. RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks Greek architecture is the perfect flowering of geometry.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
American mind a wilderness of opportunities.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
History no longer shall be a dull book. It shall walk incarnate in every just and wise man. You shall not tell me by language and titles a catalogue of the volumes you have read. You shall make me feel what periods you have lived.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Every industrious man, in every lawful calling, is a useful man. And one principal reason why men are so often useless is that they neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascinationfor all educated Americans.
Ralph Waldo Emerson