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
Only those books come down which deserve to last . All the gilt edges, vellum and morocco, all the presentation copies to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What art can paint or gild any object in after life with the glow which nature gives to the first baubles of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Books are the best of things if well used; if abused, among the worst. They are good for nothing but to inspire.… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word; but it is not a language taken to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I think I have done well, if I have acquired a new word from a good author; and my business with him… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Conservatism is affluent and openhanded, but there is a cunning juggle in riches. I observe that they take somewhat for everythingthey give.… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Society is the stage on which manners are shown; novels are the literature. Novels are the journal or record of manners; and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which the droning world, chained to appearances,… — 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
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
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 Image
