Friends should be like books, easy to find when you need them, but seldom used. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough of literature — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with bad. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“No book has worth by itself, but by the relation to what you have from many other books, it weighs.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A wise writer will feel that the ends of study and composition are best answered by announcing undiscovered regions of thought, and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
An imaginative book renders us much more service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, when we arrive atthe… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window should interweave that thread… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is true that the discerning intellect of the world is always much in advance of the creative, so that there are… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The best conversation is rare. Society seems to have agreed to treat fictions as realities, and realities as fictions; and the simple… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Expediency of literature, reason of literature, lawfulness of writing down a thought, is questioned; much is to say on both sides,and, while… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It happens to us once or twice in a lifetime to be drunk with some book which probably has some extraordinary relative… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What's a book? Everything or nothing. The eye that sees it all. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Literature is the effort of man to indemnify himself for the wrongs of his condition. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professors of books; and I think no chair is so much needed. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less imports the question of authorship. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The modernness of all good books seems to give men an existence as wide as man. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Converse with a mind that is grandly simple, and literature looks like word-catching. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Life loiters at the book's first page,-- Ah! could we turn the leaf. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“The best rule of reading will be a method from nature, and not a mechanical one of hours and pages.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every book is good to read which sets the reader in a working mood. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Society has really no graver interest than the well-being of the literary class. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is said, no man can write but one book; and if a man have a defect, it is apt to leave… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
“There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentimentin mankind; so that the power… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share
