Quote

Literature is eavesdropping.

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
Literature
Eavesdropping

More quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Image
You must let go of a thing for a new one to come to you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
a good reader makes a good book
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
There is health in table talk and nursery play. We must wear old shoes and have aunts and cousins.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Mankind divides itself into two classes,--benefactors and malefactors. The second class is vast the first a handful.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The house is a castle which the King cannot enter.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
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
Image
Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol and an audience is electrified.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The frost which kills the harvest of a year saves the harvest of a century, by destroying the weevil or the locust.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
See only that thou work and thou canst not escape the reward.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Great men exist that there might be greater men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Language is the archives of history.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Best masters for the young writer and speaker are the fault- finding brothers and sisters at home who will not spare him, but willpick and cavil, and tell the odious truth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Every word we speak is million-faced or convertible to an indefinite number of applications. If it were not so we could read no book. Your remark would only fit your case, not mine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened then we behold them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image
Knowledge is the antidote to fear
Ralph Waldo Emerson