Bare lists of words are found suggestive to an imaginative and excited mind. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Prosperity is something the businessmen created for politicians to take credit for — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Great men are more distinguished by range and extent than by originality. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
“The most wonderful inspirations die with their subject, if he has no hand to paint them to the senses.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
What is originality? It is being one's self, and reporting accurately what we see and are. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with objects immense and eternal. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Most of the classical citations you shall hear or read in the current journals or speeches were not drawn from the originals,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
There is some reason to believe that when a man does not write his poetry it escapes by other vents through him,… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The two terrors that discourage creativity and creative living are fear of public opinion and undue reverence for one's own consistency. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Great genial power, one would almost say, consists in not being original at all; in being altogether receptive; in letting the world… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
In our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim... The details, the prose of nature, he should omit, and give… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Creative force, like a musical composer, goes on unweariedly repeating a simple air or theme, now high, now low, in solo, in… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Art is the need to create; but in its essence, immense and universal, it is impatient of working with lame or tied… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes uppermost, and, because he says every thing, saying, at last, something good; but a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Our debt to tradition through reading and conversation is so massive, our protest so rare and insignificant-and this commonly on the ground… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Every really able man, in whatever direction he works - a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Speak as you think, be what you are, pay your debts of all kinds. I prefer to be owned as sound and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Each truth that a writer acquires is a lantern, which he turns full on what facts and thoughts lay already in his… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A song is no song unless the circumstance is free and fine. If a singer sing from a sense of duty or… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River, when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
But it is impossible that the creative power should exclude itself. Into every intelligence there is a door which is never closed,through… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
We must learn the language of facts. The most wonderful inspirations die with their subject, if he has no hand to paint… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
It is easy to see that what is best written or done by genius in the world, was no man's work but… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The world is young: the former great men call to us affectionately. We too must write Bibles, to unite again the heavens… — 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
