Quote

I think I have done well, if I have acquired a new word from a good author and my business with him is to find my own, though itwere only to melt him down into an epithet or an image for daily use.

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
Well
Word
Done
Though
Good
Reading
Epithet
Think
Use
Melt
Thinking
Business
Acquired
Find
Author
Wells
Daily
Book
Image

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Are you not scared by seeing that the gypsies are more attractive to us than the apostles?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
In the moment when you make the least petition to God, though it be but a silent wish that he may approve you, or add one moment to your life,--do you not, in the very act, necessarily exclude all other beings from your thought? In that act, the soul stands alone with God, and Jesus is no more present to your mind than your brother or your child.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Sleep takes off the costume of circumstance, arms us with terrible freedom, so that every will rushes to a deed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The world globes itself in a drop of dew.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
If I should go out of church whenever I hear a false statement I could never stay there five minutes. But why come out? The streetis as false as the church, and when I get to my house, or to my manners, or to my speech, I have not got away from the lie.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Insist on yourself. Never imitate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Emancipation is the demand of civilization. That is a principle everything else is an intrigue.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The Greek epigram intimates that the force of love is not shown by the courting of beauty, but where the like desire is inflamed for one who is ill-favored.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
So in writing, there is always a right word, and every other than that is wrong. There is no beauty in words except in their collocation. The effect of a fanciful word misplaced, is like that of a horn of exquisite polish growing on a human head.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. The simplicity of nature is not that which may be easily read but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Let every man shovel out his own snow and the whole city will be passable.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
A little praise goes a great ways.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The soul answers never by words, but by the thing itself that is inquired after.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
What a new face courage puts on everything!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson