Quote

For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.

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
Moment
Currency
Symbolized
Words
Finds
Hearer
Language
Brilliant
Obtained
Moments
Forgotten
Stroke
Firsts
Picture
Speaker
First
Genius
Strokes
World
Word
Speakers
Though
Origin

More quotes by 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
I do not wish to please him I wish that he should wish to please me.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The resources of the scholar are proportioned to his confidence in the attributes of the intellect.
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
The borrower runs in his own debt.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Tragedy is in the eye of the observer, and not in the heart of the sufferer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Though many painters and sculptors talk glibly of going in for photography, you will find that very few of them can ever make a picture by photography they lack the science, technical knowledge, and above all the practice. Most people think they can play tennis, shoot, write novels, and photograph as well as any other person - until they try
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
I think the vice of our housekeeping is that it does not hold man sacred. The vice of government, the vice of education, the viceof religion, is one with that of the private life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Why should the way I feel depend on the thoughts in someone else's head?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The Oversoul is before Time, and Time, Father of all else, is one of his children.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Speak the affirmative emphasize your choice by utter ignoring of all that you reject.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
This immediate dependence of language upon nature, this conversion of an outward phenomenon into a type of somewhat in human life,never loses its power to affect us. It is this which gives that piquancy to the conversation of a strong-natured farmer or backwoodsman, which all men relish.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
It is hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our own top but through sympathy we are capable of energy and endurance. Concert fires people to a certain fury of performance they can rarely reach alone.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
There is a remedy for every wrong and a satisfaction for every soul.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Men lose their tempers in defending their taste.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
When we see a soul whose acts are all regal, graceful, and pleasant as roses, we must thank God that such things can be and are.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
As sunbeams stream through liberal space And nothing jostle or displace, So waved the pine-tree through my thought And fanned the dreams it never brought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men should take these moralists at their word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at all hazards this love of power in the people, lest civilization should be undone.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven depending on whether they compare it to something better and so feel disappointed and bitter or something worse and so feel relieved and grateful.
Ralph Waldo Emerson